Through The Liquid Glass

2
ISTABUL BILGI UIVERSITY
FACULTY OF COMMUICATIO
Film and TV Department
M.A. Thesis
THROUGH THE LIQUID GLASS
A Comparative Approach to The Matrix and eXistenZ
Sona Ertekin
Istanbul July 2003

3
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ............................................................. 4
1. Introduction ...........................................................................5
2. Through The Liquid Glass
2.1 The Veal-fattenning Pen ...............................................14
2.2 Pause and Stretch .........................................................20
2.3 The Lotus Eaters or Temet Nosce ................................23
2.4 No Telos .......................................................................32
2.5 Safety Valves ................................................................42
2.6 Fleshware v.s. Super-human-machine-boy ...................55
2.7 The New Flesh ..............................................................67
2.8 The Cage .......................................................................74
2.9 The Other Side of the Glass ..........................................81
3. Conclusion .............................................................................88
4. Epilogue .................................................................................91
5. Works Cited ...........................................................................94
6. Appendix
6.1 Appendix A - Plot Summary of The Matrix
6.2. Appendix B - Plot Summary of eXistenZ
6.3 Appendix C - A Table of Reality Levels in eXistenZ

4
For my little sister,
Yağmur Elif Ertekin

5
ACKOWLEDGEMETS
I am deeply thankful to my thesis supervisor Assistant Professor
Selim Eyüboğlu, for his guidance and contribution. He helped me find out
what I was carried away with, and let me express it in my own way. In fact I
am thankful to all my professors at Hacettepe and Bilgi Universities. They
have been a source of knowledge and vision throughout my education and
after.
There are two people that I am grateful. Ömer and Meral Madra.
Without you I could’t have made it. Thank you for all the magic you put in
my life.
I would like to thank to Şerif Erol, Tolga Yalkin and all Açık Radyo
staff for helping me out in the tiresome stages of my work.
I am thankful to my friends Duygun Erim and Fırat Kaya for sharing
their academic experience, time and ideas with me throughout the whole
process.
I am also thankful to Zillimücadele, all my friends and dearest
Murat Garibağaoğlu for their endless support and belief. They certainly
make the world a better place.
And finally I wish to thank my whole big family. I believe that I took
the power to start from my mother, and the power to complete from my
father. My precious grandmother Seniha Ertekin and all the others were
always there when I needed, all the way long.

6
ITRODUCTIO
“Nothing so difficult as a beginning”
Lord Byron
Mustafa Arslantunalı writes that science-fiction works are a
“Wonderland”, and the science fiction audience is like “Alice”, bedazzled
by what she has seen. He writes that cognitive science fiction texts, push the
boundaries of our perception of our world and society. Arslantunalı adds
that such works are beyond the cognitive understanding of their time, and
have a proper understanding of social transformations as well as
technological change. i In William Gibson’s words, the idea is that “science
fiction was today”. Like the utopias and fantastic texts, science fiction texts
tell us about what is going on with our world. Just as Alice’s story tells us
about England of the Victorian era with its ridiculous kings, queens, croquet
games and tea parties.
At the beginning of her first adventure, Alice is sitting in the garden,
by her elder sister. The afternoon sun is high up and Alice is really bored.
She looks at her sisters book but it’s a disappointment since it has no
pictures. At that moment she notices a white rabbit. Hastily walking by, the
rabbit looks at his pocket watch and complains about being late. Alice,
surprised at the sight of a talking rabbit with a pocket watch, stands up and
7
follows the rabbit, and then out of curiosity, jumps in the rabbit hole after
him. She falls and falls and falls and the adventure begins. ii
When she comes back from Wonderland, having experienced a
most splendid adventure, Alice is ready for the next one; Through The
Looking Glass. In this second book, after an indefinite period since the first
adventure, Alice is inside her family house with her cat Dinah and her two
kittens. Alice tells the black kitten, Kitty, about the “looking-glass house”. It
is a house you can see through the mirror on the wall. It looks exactly like
the family house, “only things go the other way. iii The looking-glass house
is a kind of parallel universe. Alice makes a conscious decision this time
and walking through the mirror, begins this new adventure. It is only after
her voyage to Wonderland, she finds out that there is another level or realm
of reality inside her own family house. That is to say, after experiencing a
different reality, she finds out that world she is living in, also constitutes of
multiple realities. However this is a two-way relationship. The depiction of
the moment that Alice enters the looking-glass house is quite ambiguous.
Let's pretend there's a way of getting through into it, somehow,

Kitty. Let's pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so
that we can get through. Why, it's turning into a sort of mist
now, I declare! It'll be easy enough to get through -- ' She
was up on the chimney-piece while she said this, though she
hardly knew how she had got there. And certainly the glass WAS
beginning to melt away, just like a bright silvery mist. iv
It is almost as if the looking-glass house comes to life and the mirror melts
only after the very words fall from the little girl’s lips. Things happen
simultaneously as she thinks of them. The knowledge of hyperreality Alice

8
has attained in Wonderland enables her to create/discover the multi-reality
in her own life.
Like Alice creating the looking-glass house after the experience of
Wonderland; after watching science fiction films about virtual reality for
years, now we are on the brink of a virtual-bio-tech era where cyberspace
and cloning are no more a dream, a world where “simulation” has become a
social theory. It is after reading and watching science fiction for years that
man has created/discovered hyperreality. Of course hyperreality is not only
a matter of science and technology, but it is also reflected in cultural
phenomena, and social theorists are investigating the nature of hyperreal
universe and the motives behind that.
eXistenZ and The Matrix are two of the recent movies concerning
virtual reality and consequently technology. Yet they approach the virtual
phenomena from sharply opposing points of view. If we think of simulation
and virtual reality as the “looking-glass house”, and ordinary reality as the
“family house” we will find out that The Matrix looks at the “looking-glass
house,” from the “family house”; judging it in terms of authenticity. And
eXistenZ looks at the “family house” from the “looking-glass house”,
judging its limited form of existence. In contradicting understandings, both
films comment on the nature of the hyperreal universe we’re living in.
In his manifesto, Society of the Spectacle written in the year 1967,
Guy Debord explains the transformation of the world into a new order based
on images; “In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all
of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything

9
that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.” v Ten years
after, Jean Baudrillard indicates the death of the real, due to excess of
representation;
Reality itself founders in hyperrealism, the

meticulous reduplication of the real, preferably
through another, reproductive medium. From
medium to medium, the real is volatilized,
becoming an allegory of death. But also, in a
sense, reinforced through its own destruction. It
becomes reality for its own sake, the fetishism of
the lost object: no longer the object of
representation, but the ecstasy of denial and of its
own ritual extermination: the hyperreal. vi
Hyperreal is the point where the natural unity of the signifier and the
signified breaks down. The reality of production or signification leaves its
place to the “hyperreal”, consisting of resemblances.vii Hyperreality is what
we are experiencing around the world today. The pseudo media events that
take place every now and then can be examples of hyperreality. On 2 April
2003 the videotape of the rescue operation of a 19-year-old soldier called
Jessica Lynch from the Naserriya general hospital was released by
Pentagon. The tape appeared on most the TV stations all over the world.
Soon after, BBC, Guardian and The Toronto Star disclosed that, after being
treated, Private Lynch was taken to the US forces, but she was returned as
the US soldiers opened fire on the ambulance. Later on, they attacked the
hospital, "saved" Jessica Lynch and seized the hospital staff as prisoners.
Meanwhile the story had already become a TV legend, leaving all
blockbuster war-movies in shade. The preparation for Hollywood
production on Private Lynch’s heroic tale has already begun, and an Iraqi
10
fan of Jessica sent her a Ferrari as a gift to celebrate her release. viii This
appalling event is a product of the interrelation of multiple mediums of
representation. War recorded by soldiers, war on TV, war on the
Newspapers and war in Hollywood are superimposed in a single incident.
The incident itself will also be represented in a Hollywood production. This
is the point where reality ends and hyperreality begins.
I decided to work over The Matrix and eXistenZ with a comparative
approach, in order to get a full understanding of their common theme;
hyperreality, through a study of their similarities and oppositions. Both The
Matrix and eXistenZ create meaning on multiple levels about our
technoculture. Their similarities in subject matter tend to go into extreme
oppositions. Therefore, I studied the common themes in both films, such as
their portrayal of everyday life including work, time, identity, belief,
technology, the body, virtual reality and capitalism in general. I believe that
these criteria are all interrelated and they constitute both motivations and
consequences of the hyperreal state the world is experiencing today. I
believe that the study of such criteria can be fruitful in getting a better
understanding of hyperreality.
Needless to say, the issue of hyperreality is a multifaceted
phenomenon that can be applied to all aspects of our life. All explanations
of hyperreality are bound to be socio-economic and cultural abstractions.
The results of such studies reflect subjective approaches, based on research
and relative thinking. Thus it is impossible to reach a definitive judgement
of it. “Through The Liquid Glass” reflects my approach to the issue of

11
hyperreality through The Matrix and eXistenZ. The following chapters look
at multiple aspects of our “technologized” lives. Throughout this work, I
will focus on each aspect separately with a comparative approach.
The first chapter “The Veal-Fattening Pen” begins with the
phenomenon of “career” that supposedly is central to our lives. It is
questioned as the reason behind the fact that individuals are driven towards
virtual reality, since they are not satisfied with their real life. In metropolitan
life, individuals are split between their career and what they actually want to
do in life. The playing of diverse roles results in a schizophrenic state of
existence where dissatisfied individuals seek satisfaction in virtual reality.
The next chapter “Pause and Stretch” questions the notion of time in
both films. Time is studied as an essential element of the capitalist system.
Whereas The Matrix is a longing to capture time that was lost at an
indefinite point of history, eXistenZ deals with the notion of time in virtual
reality, which is much more elastic and different than the time in real life.
The third chapter “The Lotus Eaters or Temet Nosce” is about the
notion of identity in the two films. The characters in eXistenZ yield to their
multiple game characters and lose their original identities, whereas The
Matrix is a defence of singular identity. The Matrix denies virtual existence
as it is “inauthentic” but expresses identity only in the form of images.
However in eXistenZ identity is something that you can easily download.
Likewise in our century, identity has become a product, an illusion of
freedom within the limits of ready-made options.

12
The third chapter “No Telos” questions belief and the idea of
salvation. The Matrix is a story of reassurance of belief. The situations of
Morpheus as a believer, and Cypher as a traitor are studied in this part as
well as the obscure telos in The Matrix. eXistenZ doesn’t even mourn after
the long gone “belief”. However there is a conflict between the followers of
virtual reality games and realists throughout the film. Believers are
presented as ridiculous characters who turn out to be traitors. eXistenZ is the
point where belief is not a possibility any more.
“Safety Valves” includes a study of pseudo-needs that are created by
the capitalist system. These illusions of necessity enable people to
experience a simulation of satisfaction and freedom, and serve the system
both as a pacifier and a continuous source of income. It is important that
these pseudo-needs often transform into addictions which is reflected as
image addiction in The Matrix and virtual-reality-game addiction in
eXistenZ.
“Fleshware vs. Super-human-machine-boy” is a comparison of the
two films’ approaches regarding technology. The Matrix constantly
vacillates between classical techno-phobia and techno-fetishism as en
element of a ready-made, hip life-style. Diversely, eXistenZ portrays an
ambivalent approach towards technology as a site of fascination.
“The New Flesh” is about the presentation of the “body” in two
films as a “landscape” of technology. ix The most effective expression of
techno-phobia, fear of hyperreality and fear of losing sexual identity takes
place in the human body. Ironically the body is an absence in virtual reality.
13
The Matrix functions within the accustomed mind-body dichotomy.
However eXistenZ creates a new paradigm concerning mind and body, but
also including technology as a third element.
“The Cage” studies the metaphor of the cage/prison used in both
films. The cage stands for the real life in eXistenZ, and for virtual reality in
The Matrix. But what is more important is the films’ approaches to the
reason behind the cage/prison. In The Matrix it is the evil-forces personified
as the machines, and the capitalist system in eXistenZ, which traps people
inside. Therefore The Matrix is a false system criticism whereas eXistenZ
presents the social consequences of the capitalist system.
The last chapter, “The Other Side of the Glass” continues the
emphasis on the idea of cage/prison. The cage/prison is related to Plato’s
cave metaphor which is an apparent reference in both The Matrix and
eXistenZ. Virtual reality is an irreversible step out of Plato’s cave that leads
us to hyperreality which reflects to the current situation we are facing all
over the world.
“Through The Liquid Glass” is a study of the motivations and
consequences of hyperreality in The Matrix and eXistenZ. What is suggested
throughout this work is that The Matrix’ discourse of authenticity
condemning simulation and the virtual becomes irrelevant, whereas
eXistenZ expresses the ambivalent sensations of existence in a chaotic,
hyperreal universe. However the step towards hyperreality is irreversible.
The boundaries between reality and simulation; signifier and the signified
are dissolving along with the “looking-glass” itself.

14
otes to the Introduction
i
Mustafa Arslantunalı, Ayçöreği: Teknoloji, Dil ve Đletişim Üzerine
Denemeler (Đstanbul: Đletişim, 1992), p.110
ii
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (Ankara: Milli Eğitim
Basımevi, 1946), p.3
iii
Lewis Carroll, “Through The Looking Glass” Project Gutenberg
and Duncan Research Shareware,
http://rabbit.eng.miami.edu/text/carroll/lookingglass
iv
Ibid.
v
Qtd. in Scott Bukatman, Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in
Post-modern Science Fiction (London: Duke University Press, 1993), p.35
vi
Jean Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death (London: Sage
Publications, 1993), p.71
vii
Jean Baudrillard, qtd. in Necmi Zeka, “Introduction:Yolları
Çatallanan Bahçe, Aynalı Gökdelenler, Dil Oyunları ve Robespierre”
Postmodernizm, ed. Necmi Zeka (Đstanbul: Kıyı Yayınları, 1994), p.8
viii
Azmi Bishara, “Casualty of Truth: Even Hollywood May Not Be
Able To Save the Story of Private Lynch” Al Ahram 09 Jun.2003,
http://www.zmag.org
ix
Op. cit. Terminal Identity, p.81
15
CHAPTER OE
THE VEAL-FATTEIG PE
Thomas (Anderson) of The Matrix is another pale-faced-computer-
junkie-boy of our century, who spends his life between his room and his
office, and he definitely is not a morning person. On the contrary he is a
punctual latecomer, which seems to be his major problem at work. He works
as a “program writer for a respectable software company, has a social
security number, he pays his taxes and helps his landlady carry out her
garbage.” However his hacker identity divides his life in half. As Agent
Smith puts it, he seems to be living two lives. “His other life is spent on
computers, where he goes by the alias Neo and is guilty of virtually every
computer crime there is a law for.”

16
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. eo’s room
As a wild hacker, Neo’s dark, gloomy room reflects a lonely,
depressive life spent mostly in front of the two computer screens placed on
the office table, over which he probably often falls asleep. Even his
acquaintances tell him that he “needs to unplug” now and then.
The scene that Neo is being scorned by his boss has a strong taste of
estrangement. As they talk, we see the workers cleaning the glass windows
of the plaza on the background, and we hear the wiping sound on the glass.
His “private” office is a “veal-fattening pen”.

17
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. eo is stuck inside
Veal-fattening Pen: Small, cramped office

workstations built of fabric covered
disassemblable wall partition and inhabited by
junior Staff members. Named after the small
preslaughter cubicles used by the cattle industry.ix
His job is far from satisfying him by any means, except economically.
Allegra Geller(2) is a star game designer who, like Neo, spends most
of her time alone in her room, designing the games. It is thought that “she
would like it best if she never had to show them to anybody.” However, in
order to make a living she has to sell her games and make public
appearances now and then.

18
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. Allegra in public
She definitely does not work and design games in order to make a
living, on the contrary she sells her games, to be able to stay alone in her
room, design games and spend her time in virtual reality. Yet their
motivations are very different. Neo is not at ease with the life he’s leading.
He knows that something’s going wrong with the world, but he is not
completely aware of the inside story. Without knowing the fact that he is
living in a computer simulation run by the machines, he keeps crawling. He
resists the system but he cannot rebel, because he doesn’t know what’s
behind the system that entraps him. On the other hand Allegra(2) is aware of
the power dynamics behind the system she’s living in, but she manipulates
it. Through the game companies, she “does her own thing”. In the heart of
the system, she creates game realms and alters the very notion of reality.
19
Ted Pikul(2) is depicted as a square character who has never played
any virtual reality games. Allegra(2) calls him a “pr nerd”. Ted tells
Allegra(2) that he was dying to play one of her games but he has never been
ported, out of the fear of getting paralysed during the porting process.
However as we later learn, he turns out to be a realist who has dedicated
himself to the mission of executing Allegra(2).
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. The factory as the “spatialization” of estrangement
Ted(4) and Allegra(4) are workers in a filthy game pod factory. They
work in unbearable conditions. The working atmosphere in this place is the
“spatialization” of estrangement itself. Both Allegra and Ted are agents of
the “Realist Underground” and their mission is to destroy their own
workplace.
All these characters are working in certain jobs but none of them is
in harmony with his/her career. They work because they have to. Neo and
20
Allegra(2) work in order to make a living and spend most of their time in
virtual reality. Ted(2) is disguised as a marketing trainee in order to kill
Allegra. Ted(4) and Allegra(4) are trying to destroy the factory they’re
working for. They all are victims of the “strange delusion” that has
“possess(ed) the working classes of the nations where capitalist civilization
holds its sway” which we call “career”.ix This is the drama of the people
living in a system where our “right to be lazy” has been taken from our
hands long time ago and the sign of the split personality crisis people suffer,
being divided between self and career. David Harvey explains that, Jonathan
Raban envisioned the city as the origin of the multiplicity of roles performed
by individuals, in his book “The Soft City”. As Harvey puts it,
Too many people lost their way in the labyrinth,

it was simply too easy for us to lose each other as
well as ourselves. And if there was something
liberating about the possibility of playing many
diverse roles, there was also something stressful
and deeply unsettling about it.ix
The playing of diverse roles gives way to the splitting of personality
which leads the city dwellers to a rather schizophrenic state of existence.
The dissatisfaction caused by the life style reduced to office and weekend,
can be seen as the very reason that drives people towards virtual reality. Neo
works in a boring job but at night he’s the wild hacker, the king of virtual
reality. After he is awakened to reality his position is not much different.
Again he lives in a boring reality and seeks satisfaction and experience in
The Matrix.
21
otes to Chapter One

ix
Douglas Coupland, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
Culture (London: Abacus, 1997), p.26
ix
Paul Lafargue, “The Right To Be Lazy”,
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/works/lazy/
ix
David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Cambridge:
Blackwell, 1995) p.6
CHAPTER TWO
PAUSE AD STRETCH
“Time is out of joint”

22
William Shakespeare, Hamlet.
After Neo is taken out of The Matrix, the guerrillas bring him on
board the Nebuchadnezzar. When Neo comes to, he asks Morpheus what
this place is. Morpheus answers; “More important than what, is when.” But
he cannot tell the exact time. The sign attached on the deck of
Nebuchadnezzar reads “Mark III No.11 / Nebuchadnezzar /Made in USA /
Year: 2096” However they do not know the exact date when the machines
have taken over, and since then, time is lost.
Time had taken over another meaning in the period after the
Industrial Revolution. As the capitalist system emerged, it conjoined the
notion of time inseparably with the capital. In The Situation of
Postmodernity David Harvey points that “in money economies in general,
and in capitalist society in particular, the intersecting command of money,
time and space forms a substantial nexus of social power, that we cannot
afford to ignore.”ix And he quotes Landes; “(Time measurement) was at
once a sign of new-found creativity and an agent and catalyst in the use of
knowledge for wealth and power.” David Harvey adds that “money can be
used to command time (our own or that of others) and space. Conversely,
command of time and space can be converted back into command over
money.”ix So time is money. It is control. It is the sign of a perfectly running
system. Because of that, when the machines took over and the capitalist
system broke down in The Matrix, time is lost along with it. And as the film
is a saga that recounts the war fought to go back to the olden days of the
23
system, they also fight to get their precious time and “real” space back in
their hands. Time is what we must have, in order to keep our lives in order,
so that we can keep the machine going. It is out there in the film as a
precious non-existence, a longing.
On the contrary, in eXistenZ, time is what we try to get rid of. And
the game is the way to escape and trick time. As they’re getting ready to
play the game in the church, the seminar leader asks Allegra(2) how long
they’re going to play. Right before they start, Allegra(2) tells the gamers
that they’ll be back in no time at all. By the end of the film we understand
that, what we have been watching for the last one and a half hours has all
been a game that has begun even before the beginning of the film. And the
gamers talk to each other about the game. One of the gamers, Hugo(1) asks
Merle(1) who had not entered the game, how long they had been playing.
He especially asks her, because in the game, time runs in a different course.
Merle(1) tells that they have been playing for twenty minutes. That is a
surprise for him; “God, it seemed like days, it’s fantastic.” Another gamer,
Darcy Nader(1) adds to that; “Just think about it man, if you stayed your
whole life in the game world, then you could have lived about, I don’t
know, five hundred years.” Virtual reality enables you to pause and stretch
time, along with life. It is a choice if you “prefer not to”.ix It is an escape
but again in terms allowed by the system, for we should keep in mind that
eXistenZ is a well-worth game sold by a powerful company. In spite of all
the escapism and illusion of freedom, eXistenZ displays the attempt to get
rid of what is fought for in The Matrix; time, with all its connotations. The
24
gamers in eXistenZ resist the system by altering reality. Replacing it with
fantasy and a synthetic form of space and time, they clash the rationality
within the core of the system.
otes to Chapter Two

ix
David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Cambridge:
Blackwell, 1995) p.226
ix
Ibid.
ix
The famous words of the leading character in Herman Melville’s
story Bartleby.
CHAPTER THREE
THE LOTUS EATERS

OR
TEMET OSCE
“Nothing is real, everything is permitted”

25
Hassan Sabbahix
The “lotus eaters” Odysseus meets on his journey “let the memory of
all that had been, fade from their minds.”ix The gamers in eXistenZ
completely yield to their game characters in the same fashion. They leave
reality and their original selves (if there is such a thing in a hyperreal
universe) behind and completely merge into the game reality. They float
rootless, around in a world where there are no rules. In order to be
successful in the game, one has to adapt him/herself completely to the game
reality and let his/her game character appear and take over. That is to say, if
you wish to play well, you have to forget who you are, and initiate a state of
oblivion.
On the contrary, in The Matrix, to be successful one always has to
remember that everything inside The Matrix is part of a simulation, and not
real. This is the opposite of what you have to do in order to be successful in
eXistenZ; forgetting who you are in real life. Whereas in The Matrix, who
you really are, is the one thing you should never forget.
At the beginning of a game in eXistenZ, all of a sudden Ted(4)
furiously shouts at Darcy Nader(3). Bewildered by his own action he asks
Allegra(3) what had just happened. Because he had not meant to say what
he just did. Allegra(3) tells him that it was his game character who said that.
“It’s kind of a schizophrenic feeling isn’t it? You’ll get used to it.” She
explains that there are things that have to be said to advance the plot. “Most
26
things get said whether you wanna say them or not. Don’t fight it, just go
with it.”
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. Ted cannot “help” killing the waiter
The mechanics of what makes the game character run properly is the
“game urge”. The game urge is the reason why you do things whether you
wish to do them or not. These pseudo urges cause Ted(4), to treat people
bad, to eat the disgusting “special” at the Chinese restaurant which is a
sticky dish made of a two headed mutated amphibian. While eating Ted(4)
tells Allegra(4) that he finds it disgusting but he can’t help it. Allegra(4)
explains him why; “Yeah, it’s a genuine game urge. Something your game
character was born to do. Don’t fight it.” Ted(4) answers “I’m fighting it,
but it isn’t doing me any good.” After a most revolting appetite scene,
Ted(4) constitutes a gun from what is left of “our two headed friend”. He
tells he feels the urge to kill someone and it is the Chinese waiter that he
27
needs to kill. Ted(4) is not sure if he can kill him because everything’s so
realistic and the waiter is so very nice. But Allegra(4) knows better. “You
won’t be able to stop it; you might as well enjoy it.” Ted follows his game
urge and kills the waiter. Whatever he says he will not do, he does.
The game characters in this section are the ones they had
“downloaded” from the micropods that Darcy Nader(3) had given. These
game characters downloaded in a game within a game, are different from
the other game characters they had been practising on other levels of reality.
Therefore the game has the function to let the gamers experience many
diverse identities other than their own. In The Matrix, we come across the
imposition of a super-hero image on the characters who are expected to do
whatever is necessary to fulfill the requirements of their heroic identities.
Conversely the gamers in eXistenZ perform different roles as it is in Fantasy
Role Playing games. This form of transitory identity is one that involves the
individuals’ fantasies and conflicts. It is an imaginary character that the
gamer performs, however the game character is not a complete stranger as
the gamer carries his own personality and conflicts into this fantastic form
of existence. Instead of the unbending image imposition in The Matrix,
reflected in the form of image addiction, fantasy extensions are projected on
ever-shifting game characters in eXistenZ. Allegra is both seductive,
motherly at the same time. She is the ultimate woman as she can perform
multiple social roles. She can be the whore, the mother, the sister and all,
whenever she wants to. The ever-shifting, transitory identity gamers
perform via game characters, sets them free to be whatever they want to.
28
If you think about our times, identity is already something sold as a
product, something we can buy or actually download. The clothes, the
house, the coffee-table you buy, constitute your image, and identity doesn’t
work without image anymore. In order to support your image you
“personalize” your cell phone and your desktop, whatever that means, of
course only within the limits of given choices. You are free to create your
own combination as you are free to combine the pareo, bikini and tops at
Marks & Spencer. That is to say, you are free to choose from a set of
options, free to be what you want, but only inside certain preset choices. As
in Scott Bukatman’s example of TV, “The plurality of channel selections
serves as a kind of guarantee of the freedom of the subject to choose, to
position oneself within the culture”.ix That is to say, freedom is an illusion.
There’s no “free”. Therefore identity itself is transient, a marketing product.
After downloading his new character Ted(4) finds himself as a
worker in the Trout Farm. He looks at his name tag to learn his new name.
A co-worker interrupts him; “Trying to remember who you are?” Then he
looks at his own name tag and says “Yeah. Yeah it works, I must be
Yevgeny Nourish.” This situation can be evaluated in two different ways.
Even if we don’t know yet, Yevgeny(4) is either a player and he is joking
about how people get acquainted with their own game characters, or he is a
game character and is just making fun of Ted(4). Either way, outside all
contexts what we witness in this scene is a man looking at his name tag in
order to learn who he is.

29
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. I wonder what my name is
At the Chinese restaurant Ted(4) is disturbed and he pauses the
game. They find themselves back in the ski chalet. At this point his real life
seems “completely unreal”. He says that Allegra(2) is beginning to feel like
a game character too. If we can be many people at different times, after a
period of changing characters as if changing our clothes, how can we know
who we really are? As multiple realities lessens the reality of the real,
multiple identities end up where we loose our identities and exist in a
transitory moment that lasts forever. This is the reason behind the
schizophrenic feeling Allegra(4) had told Ted(4) about, and it leads us back
to Raban’s Soft City where people are lost in the labyrinth of multiple roles.
If we go back to the guerrillas in The Matrix, we see solid characters
that are sure of who they are, whether they are in The Matrix or not. The
mystical kung-fu master Morpheus is the captain of a guerrilla ship called

30
Nebuchadnezzar. Trinity is “an aerobicized lieutenant who could be Keanu
Reeves’ female twin”.ix They had been freed long time ago so we do not
know anything about who they had been inside The Matrix. Because, it does
not matter as in The Matrix, there’s only one reality, and The Matrix is
considered as “completely unreal”. The Matrix portrays a contradictory
point of view regarding who the characters are in reality, and who they had
been inside The Matrix. The question of authenticity is a fundamental issue
in the film. Stimulus and phenomena are questioned and considered in terms
of authenticity. The effects and feelings invoked by these are not considered
as evidence to make it real. Moreover, the effects are not important or valid.
The only thing that matters is authenticity.
Neo gets back in The Matrix for the first time since he was freed, in
order to see the oracle. As they pass a Chinese restaurant Neo tells Trinity
that he used to eat there. That is before he was freed. And he asks “I have
memories from my life, none of them happened. What does that mean?”
Trinity answers “That the Matrix cannot tell you who you are.” If so, who is
Neo? Can a person with approximately twenty-eight years of life
experience, be reborn as a tabula rasa? He used to have a life in The Matrix.
He used to love, get cold, think; he used to get curious and hungry. He used
to have an identity. If we deny this personality then we cannot say that a
person called Neo exists.

31
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. “Suits” that run the system
Actually Neo’s individual story is leaving what he had been behind
because someone told him it was not real, and rediscovering who he really
is. And what he discovers is that he is not even a person, he is the hero of a
“resistance (fighting) a system run by suits.” “The enemy, all Caucasian
(and quite pale at that) with receding hairlines, wear the requisite suits of
middle management, off-the-rack and by-the-book dull green”.ix
However, Neo is just another suit, only cooler. Again using Edward
Miller’s terms, his “form fitting black leather vinyl Prada-wear” is a part of
his “residual self image” which Morpheus explains as the “mental projection
of your digital self”. This is where things get tricky. We know that, what is
in The Matrix is not real. Their identity is based on who and what they are
in the real world. And this identity is reflected as a digital projection when
32
they enter The Matrix. Then why is it different then what they really look
like?
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. Cool guerrilla wear
Inside The Matrix they are chic, cool and they don’t have the plugs
that are the signs of their past slavery. That is to say, they experience what
they want to be in The Matrix. The representation of identity based on
image in The Matrix reflects the limited point of view that operates within
image addiction. What we learn is that “Know thyself” (written in the
Oracle’s kitchen wall) means “examine your outwear”. It also “proves the
old Hollywood saying that costume is character.”ix And as for eXistenZ you
cannot “know thyself”, because there is no such thing.
otes to Chapter Three

33
ix
Hassan Sabbah quoted by William Burroughs in Decisions.
ix
Edith Hamilton, Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
(New York: Mentor, 1969) p.211
ix
ix
Miller, Edward D., “The Matrix and the Medium’s Message.”
Social Policy, Online Edition,
http://www.socialpolicy.org/recent_issues/SU00/nedmiller.html
ix
Ibid.
ix
Ibid.
CHAPTER FOUR
34
O TELOS
“‘Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters too? I
never saw one alive before!’ ‘Well, now that we have seen each other’ said
the Unicorn, ‘if you believe in me, I’ll believe in you.’”
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass.
“Nothing is real. There’s nothing to get hung about. Strawberry fields
forever.”
John Lennon, Strawberry Fields.
Belief is a recurrent theme in The Matrix. The most important issue
regarding belief is the question of salvation. Is salvation there? The question
of salvation constitutes the core of the story; is Neo the one? This is the
question all the guerrillas have in mind, including Neo. If he believes, the
notion of belief will be brought back into life. Because, it is lost along with
human civilization and time. Belief therefore, is a question mark in The
Matrix. But Hollywood asks questions in order to give specific answers. The
answer is; no matter how weird the world gets, we have to believe, because
saviours and heroes still exist and life is useless without belief and whatever
has no function is chaotic, and Hollywood doesn’t like chaos. As Morpheus
expresses, Neo is like Alice stumbling down the rabbit whole. If he does not
believe in himself, he will keep on falling and falling which is what the
gamers do in eXistenZ. Because they don’t believe in salvation.

35
Morpheus is a believer. He is in fact the only character that had been
a believer all the way long. He is like John the Baptist who had told Jesus
that he is “the one”. This is a fact that all the guerrillas (except Cypher)
respect, but about which they all are curious. The oracle explains Neo what
is to believe. “Morpheus believes in you, Neo. And no one, not you, not
even me can convince him otherwise.” Belief is to believe in something, no
matter what. The guerrillas who work off their life in order to learn if he’s
right or wrong are all curious, but they will all wake and see that he had
been right all the way long. So the question is to believe or not.
On the other hand we have Cypher, who is actually the only human
touch we come across in The Matrix. After he was freed from The Matrix,
he was taken onboard the Nebuchadnezzar and began a guerrilla life. For
sometime he was in love with Trinity, but he couldn’t get any positive
response. He did not believe in salvation, he couldn’t find love. There was
nothing to give meaning to his life. Cypher only wants to be happy; he
prefers to be an actor in The Matrix, rather than being a guerrilla fighting for
reality. This is a very natural human reaction. He is the only character in The
Matrix to react in such a natural way; however, he is depicted as a traitor, a
scape goat. He is the sinner. He performs the ultimate sin which is to deny
the superiority of authenticity. “You know, I know this steak doesn’t exist. I
know that when I put it in my mouth, The Matrix is telling my brain that it
is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance
is bliss.” This is where we are faced with the question of going back in The
Matrix and the idea that the red pill sucks. In the scene that Cypher gives
36
away all the guerrillas, he explains Trinity why; “I’m tired Trinity. I’m tired
of this war. I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of this ship, being cold, eating the
same god damn goop everyday. But most of all, I’m tired of that jack-off
and all of his bullshit.” All of a sudden we are awakened to the fact that
Morpheus is just another annoying officer. Everyone except Trinity
(because of her rank) and Neo (because he possibly is “the one”) calls him
“sir” which gives away the military hierarchy they live with and the fact that
this is a war movie. It is just free of the anxiety of being politically correct
since the enemy is made of steel instead of flesh and bone. Cypher is the
traitor in this war movie. He is there for us to see what we must not do. He
chooses virtual reality instead of the real world, like Allegra(2). Their
motivations are similar too. They are not satisfied in the real world so they
prefer to live in virtual reality. For them, it doesn’t matter if what they
experience is real or not, as long as they are happy. Here we come across a
complicated question. Either in virtual reality or in the real world you
experience things which evoke certain feelings. If you feel it, who is to say
it is not real? That is why we can say that a person called Neo doesn’t exist
if we are to accept the statement that whatever is virtual is not real. For
Cypher and Allegra(2) it doesn’t matter which level of reality it is as long as
you experience life. This is a point where the question of authenticity
becomes irrelevant. That is to say, “as you like it”.ix
Cypher and Allegra(2) can be regarded as the personifications of the
millennium spirit. They are everyone, who knows but prefers to live as if
he/she does not “know”. The people who are estranged by theories and
37
“ism-s”; people who don’t “believe”. This is a world where “grand
histoires”ix are out of circulation. Cypher says that Morpheus has tricked
them into getting out of The Matrix, which seems right. Morpheus also
tricks Neo by under-informing him. The advertising genius almost sells The
Matrix to him as if it’s the coolest thing of the century, shared by a designer
friendly, elite minority. The legendary question “what is The Matrix?” is a
brilliant marketing strategy, that makes use of “curiosity” as the motive of
the urge to possess. But you don’t really know what you’re buying and you
end up possessing something you don’t “buy”. In return to Cypher’s
accusation, Trinity tells that Morpheus has set them free. More important
than the question “what is The Matrix?” is another question; “what is
freedom?” Is it a life-time military service, obeying “the great believer”
Morpheus’ orders; or is it the free will to decide where to live and what to
live by even if it is to live a lie? Trinity tells him The Matrix isn’t real. In
return Cypher performs a demonstration on how real virtual reality can be.
“I disagree, Trinity. I think The Matrix can be more real than this world. All
I do is pull the plug here. But there, you have to watch Apoc die.” After
Apoc it’s Switch’s turn. They’re true believers but they aren’t attractive
enough which is why they have to die. As Edward Miller puts it; “the
message from Hollywood is clear: the many must wait for the heroic and
attractive few to bring about social justice.”ix As Cypher is about to unplug
Switch, she says; “Not like this… not like this…” She is offended to die
such a stale, insignificant death. She wants to die fighting, to be a martyr
that will be remembered, but you have to be pretty to make even a second
38
class hero. Even when you’re on the brink of death, what matters is the
cause and the cause only. This counter-reminds what Ted(3) in eXistenZ
tells a game character. “We’re here Darcy Nader, and that’s all that
matters.”
eXistenZ deals with the same question of belief, but evaluates it from
a rather complicated point of view. There are believers and heathens in
eXistenZ too, but no single belief. There are several things to believe or not.
Believers in games, believers in reality, believers in cash and disbelievers of
all three. A believer of one of these is a disbeliever of the other and vice
versa. This portrays the diversity of belief in society and the “mobile”
position of being “the other.”
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. Gathering of the “heathens”
At the beginning of eXistenZ we see a group of people secretly
gathered in a rural church, a picture to remind the first Christians’ secret

39
gatherings. This sepia colored picture in which players sit symmetrically in
line, almost looks like a religious painting, probably representing the last
supper. Someone will betray, but who? The first Christians believed that the
world was headed in the wrong direction and that it was transitory. They
believed in a heaven and a hell. When the world itself turned into a hell,
people began to purchase do-it-yourself-heaven-kits of a rich variety where
everyone could pick-up something to go with his/her own taste and income.
As Herbert Marcuse puts it,
Capitalism turned upon individual men and

women, seized their subjective emotions and
experiences, changed those once evanescent
phenomena into objective, replicable
commodities, placed them on the market, set their
prices, and sold them back to those who had,
once, brought emotions and experiences out of
themselves-to people who, as prisoners of the
spectacle, could now find such things only on the
market.ix
Virtual pleasures on the market function as “safety valves” and help
companies increase their income too. That way, we kill two birds with one
stone. Here we have a religion in the middle of the capitalist system, which
keeps the machine going, eXistenZ; “not just a game, but a new game
system.” eXistenZ is the religion of the ones who do not believe. This
virtual reality belongs to the ones who have given up hope long time ago. A
religion, of heathens, that feeds the system. The holy trinity.
The second group of believers are the “realists” who oppose the idea
of virtual reality. The members of the Realist Underground consider the
game company Cortical Systematics as “the enemy of reality”. According to

40
the realist discourse, game artists “have to suffer for all the harm they’ve
done and intended to do to the human race” which is “the most effective
deforming of reality”. The Realist Underground is most probably financially
supported by the rival company Antenna Research but that’s another issue.
Yevgeny Nourish(4) guides Ted(4) and Allegra(4) as their connection in the
Trout Farm. Due to his intervention, they kill the Chinese waiter.
Afterwards in the kitchen Ted(4) asks him why the Chinese waiter had to
die. Yevgeny(4) tells him that a waiter who hears many things spoken
during the lunch break has many opportunities for betrayal.
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. “Us”
Ted(4) is unaware of the mechanics of the system and naively asks him, “He
betrayed you?” Yevgeny(4) enthusiastically answers him, “He betrayed us.
Us! (…) We love you, now that you have proven to be truthful and
trustworthy realists. We’ll be in touch”. Yevgeny(4) is represented as a man

41
who has devoted himself to the Realist cause. But his situation is far from
the blessed believer Morpheus and the guerrillas. On the contrary he is
ridiculed. Because in this world, there is nothing to believe in anymore. He
says “Us”. But there’s no “Us” either. Revolution is unrealistic. It’s a fairy
tale. That is why being a believer is like believing the world is flat.
Accordingly, Yevgeny(4) is portrayed as the caricature of a man who
blindly believes in something and fights for it. Allegra(4) as a heathen and
Ted(4) as an ignorant square, are far from taking him seriously. And what’s
all the more ironic is although Yevgeny(4) acts like a true believer of reality,
later on we learn that he is in fact a “double-agent for Cortical Systematics.”
The personification of belief himself turns out to be a “mole”. One cannot
help but ask, you can’t believe in believers these days, can you?
After the first attempted assassination incident in the church, Ted(2)
and Allegra(2) take refuge at the ski hut. Allegra(2) tells him that realists are
after her and have already attempted to assassinate her. Vinokur(2) tells he’s
already heard “this ridiculous story about some fetwa” against her. The
religious term “fetwa” expresses the realists’ fatal approach towards
Allegra(2). They consider her as the “demoness”, because she creates other
levels of reality, which is heathenism. This is to play god. The same
situation that makes Allegra(2) a “game-pod goddess” and a rebel heroine,
constitutes the tragic flaw of human civilization in The Matrix. The nerve to
create artificial intelligence, virtual reality and therefore play god.
The “game-pod-goddess” of gamers is the “demoness” for the
realists. The assassin in the first church scene yells “Death to the demoness,
42
Allegra Geller! Death to Antenna Research!” before shooting her. Later on
at the Chinese restaurant, Ted(4) tells the same thing to Allegra(4) but she
doesn’t find it amusing. Towards the end of the film things get all mixed up.
We cannot be sure if what’s going on is a game or not. Ted turns out to be a
realist and is killed by Allegra who this time shouts “Death to the demon
Ted Pikul!” Afterwards we understand that all that happened throughout the
film had been a game. We learn that Ted(1) and Allegra(1) are both realists
dedicated to execute “the worlds greatest game artist” Yevgeny Nourish(1)
who has created the new game system “tranCendenZ” for the game
company “PilgrImage”. Before shooting him they shout together. “Death to
the demon Yevgeny Nourish, death to tranCendenZ!” The point here is
there is no single belief and no blissed believers in eXistenZ. In contrast with
the guerrillas in The Matrix, the gamers have long ago given up belief in
salvation. The obscure “telos” that constitutes the backbone of The Matrix is
out there as a non-existence in eXistenZ. There is no motive, no “purpose”,
just “play”.ix At the Chinese restaurant, after they order the “special” Ted(4)
wants to pause the game; “The game can be paused can’t it? I mean all
games can be paused.” Allegra(4) cannot understand why he wants to;
“Yeah, sure. But why, what’s wrong? Aren’t you dying to see what’s so
special about the special?” Because this is a world with “no telos”. What
makes people keep on living is the urge to see “what’s so special about the
special.” It is the “pursuit of happiness” in eXistenZ instead of the
“happiness of pursuit” in The Matrix that keeps them going.ix And no matter
what you pursue, it is the third group of believers that win either way.
43
“They”, the inseparable element of the holy trinity; who are invisible, but
are everywhere.
otes to Chapter Four

ix
William Shakespeare’s play
ix
Jean François Lyotard
ix
Miller, Edward D.; “The Matrix and the Medium’s Message.”
ix
ix
Ihab Hassan, “The Culture of Postmodernism” Theory, Culture
and Society: Explorations in Critical Social Sciences Vol:2 No:3, 1985.
ix
Walt Whitman
CHAPTER FIVE
SAFETY VALVES
“A functioning police state needs no police.”

44
William Burroughs, The 8aked Lunchix
The cell phone has a crucial role in The Matrix. Most of the time it
helps the guerrillas find their way through situations that are a matter of life
and death. They use safety-catch Nokia telephones specially designed for
the film. The cell phone used here is a vital magical instrument, a life saver
and a symbol of power. In the scene we see Neo sitting in his “veal-
fattening pen”, the agents come looking for him but he doesn’t know that. In
order to warn him, Morpheus sends him a Nokia with a courier.
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. ever leave home without it
He guides him to escape from the building. He follows the orders
and is about to jump out of the window over to the scaffold. But he drops
his phone, and it’s over. Without his phone, he can’t make it. He can’t make
it because he is afraid to jump and let go of all that he has believed to be

45
true. At this point of the film he is not freed from The Matrix yet, therefore
he is not conscious of the fact that everything he sees around and everything
he owns is part of a computer simulation. Towards the end of the film Neo
takes the cell phone of a man on the street from his hand, in order to make
an emergency contact with the Nebuchadnezzar. We hear the man shout
after him “That’s my phone, that’s my best phone.” The cell phone
addiction visible in The Matrix is a reflection of the cell-phone mania we
see around the world today. The guerrillas’ use of the cell-phone is
different. It is depicted as a life saving utility instead of an addiction. It
helps the guerrillas get in and out of The Matrix. However, the cell-phone
reflects another kind of addiction; the “image addiction” that overrides The
Matrix. It is the final touch to the painstaking “image management” of The
Matrix heroes, completed with designer-cut outfit, mirrored shades, Ducati
motorcycles and other fancy gadgets. The guerrillas “are clad head to toe in
form fitting black leather vinyl Prada-wear.”ix Edward Miller’s point is;
“their chicness suggests that commodity fetishism is a defence against the
blandness of everyday consumerism.”ix But their chicness may very well be
the sign of commodity fetishism and the blandness of everyday
consumerism as well, which can be regarded as another form of addiction.
Another aspect of the image addiction in The Matrix is the presentation of
technology and cyber-space as a life-style. In his brilliant work Cyberia,
Douglas Rushkoff tells that long before the personal computers and
videogames, William Burroughs wrote about "a hallucinatory dimension
called the Interzone, where machines mutate into creatures and people can
46
be controlled telepathically by 'senders' who communicate messages via
psychedelics introduced into the victim's bloodstreams."ix This pre-
cybernetic prophesy triggered the cyber-punk movement in literature. Cyber
possibilities were discovered one by one, while science fiction writers like
William Gibson and Bruce Sterling created the cyberpunk myth that defined
the tone of the 90's.ix William Gibson's revelation of his choice of subject
matter is significant: "One of the reasons I think, that I use computers in that
way is that I got really interested in these obsessive things. I hadn't heard
anybody talk about anything, with that intensity since the sixties. It was like
listening to people talk about drugs."ix Beginning from the 90's, cyberspace
filled the space in the lives of many young people looking for a meaning,
providing them with an endless dark space within their computers in their
own rooms. Douglas Rushkoff puts it that "the cyberian vision is a heretical
negation of the rules by which Western society has chosen to organize
itself."ix The hackers were presented as a threat to society as they had the
power to pull down the vast networks of the government and capitalist
power groups. At the same time, the myth created around cyber-space
became popular through films, cartoons, comics, music and magazines. The
excess of popularity soon resulted in the collapse of the myth itself.
The presentation of cyber-space and technology as a lifestyle in The
Matrix, is based on the cyber-punk literature and the cyber-space myth of
the 90's. However,it is the caricature of the cyber-space myth that already
collapsed in the media pool. Moreover, in it's technophobic tone that depicts
the destructive aspects of virtual reality and technology, The Matrix negates
47
its own cyber-punk aspect. The obsession with authenticity presented along
with the cyber-punk imagery, the heroes revolting in order to get back to the
old system are all ironic. Therefore, the cyber-punk element is only visible
in the level of "image addiction" in The Matrix.
Douglas Rushkoff points that "most men in the cyber-arts scenes
tend to think of themselves as dominators of technology." He adds that there
are exceptions that "strive to become 'one' with the machine."ix The guerilla
war in The Matrix is an effort to dominate technology, and achieve
satisfaction through a chic cyber-punk image. It is not the means of
technology that matters, but who dominates it. Conversely the gamers in
eXistenZ tend to walk the virtual path towards a unity with the machine.
The only phone we see in eXistenZ is the “pinkphone”. It is the
product of a curious technology which has replaced polished plastic surfaces
with an opaque, organic, texture. When it rings, its translucid surface turns
pink as it is when you put a lit torch behind your finger. Ted’s(2) pinkphone
rings as they drive, running away from the assassins who’re after Allegra(2).
Allegra(2) immediately picks up the phone and throws it out of the window.
Ted(2) considers the phone as their “lifeline to civilization”. But Allegra(2)
thinks that it is “a range finder” which will let people know where they hide.
48
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. Ted’s pinkphone
As it is mentioned above, eXistenZ is a quite techno-fetishistic movie
with emphasis on organic bio-technology; however it is prejudiced about
cellular phones, and not without reason as cellular phones are used by
governmental organisations and power groups with motives of intelligence.
There aren’t any other cell phones around, in eXistenZ. This movie filled
with fascination of technology resists the cell phone, and denies it as a
crucial need.
The difference between the approaches of the two films towards cell
phones is that in The Matrix it is a need, a part of daily life, a
complementary element of image addiction. And in eXistenZ it is not. It is
even non-existent. And what is more important becomes clear with a
question; what is the difference between need and addiction? Do we really
need them? Guy Debord writes;

49
(…) when economic necessity is replaced by the

necessity for boundless economic development,
the satisfaction of human needs is replaced by an
uninterrupted fabrication of pseudo-needs which
are reduced to the single pseudo-need of
maintaining the reign of the autonomous
economy.ix
These pseudo-needs often transform into addictions. The form of
addiction we come across in eXistenZ is virtual reality itself. Allegra(2) is
obviously an addict of virtual reality. When she comes to the church, Ted(2)
is surprised to see that a big star like her is so shy. She’s quite, maybe
curiously humble looking, and dressed insignificantly. This is in total
contrast with the fashion victim guerrillas in The Matrix.
Allegra’s(2) insignificant appearance and indifferent behaviour is
understandable, as she’s not used to being in “real” public, and she doesn’t
pay much attention to the first level of reality. She spends most of her time
in her room, designing games and playing them. As the creator of virtual
reality games and game systems, Allegra(2) is more than just a star.
Creating other levels of realities can be the offspring of technological
advance but since it alters reality itself, such action has miraculous effects
on individuals and society. This miracle results in getting contradictory
reactions from the society. Some people become her followers whereas
some people accuse her of violating reality. Causing all the menace and
miracle Allegra(2) becomes a Virgin Mary figure. She is the creator, and
eXistenZ is like a womb all the players are connected to, using umbi-cords
which are devices resembling umbilical cords, that connect the gamer to the
game system. Allegra(2), associates herself with the womb she creates.
50
When she talks about her game, she calls it “her”. At one point Ted(2) and
Allegra(2) are being chased down by some curious power groups and
realists. As they’re hiding in a hotel room, Allegra(2) wants to play. “My
baby here took a huge hit in the church Pikul.
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. Mother and child
One of those umbi-chords got ripped out of her. Ripped out of her. Just as
the game architecture was being downloaded from her to all those slave
pods. That’s a very vulnerable time for her.” At this point the connection
between Allegra(2) and her game becomes very clear. The vulnerable time
of the pod was a vulnerable time for Allegra(2) too. Although she spends
most of her time alone in her room, she came to the church and exposed
herself. She let people connect to her game. When the cord was ripped out,
it also endangered her connection with the game. The disconnection

51
between Allegra(2) and her game results in her disconnection with the
womb she has associated herself with. It is unbearable.
There is almost an organic connection between Allegra(2) and her
game. She’s a very cool woman who remains calm even when there’s a
hoard of assassins after her. However she cannot remain so calm when her
game is the issue. She can do anything in order to save it. She uses her
sexual and motherly authority and talks Ted(2) into getting a bioport and
playing with her. She is really successful in this; given Ted(2) is extremely
techno-phobic, and has never played any games in an age where people can
get legal bioport instalments at malls and illegal ones at a local country gas
station. Unfortunately Ted gets a flawed installation from the gas station
operator Gas(2), who wants to kill Allegra(2) in order to get the five million
dollar reward for her dead body. The flawed port breaks down the pod,
which puts the only and original version of eXistenZ in danger. At this point
Allegra(2) gets furious. “I’m locked outside my own game. I can’t get me in
or it out!” As she can’t get in it, and can’t get the game out of the pod, she
cannot take the game out of herself either. This is what we call addiction.
She gets really mad whenever her game is in danger. After Ted(2)
kills Gas(2) who has attempted to kill them, they run away. As they’re
driving away Ted(2) is anxious and doesn’t know what to do. She tells
Allegra(2) that they need help. But she’s obsessed with her pod and game
only, and she answers “Yeah, I gotta get this pod fixed.” Like a junkie that
walks around with his/her needle set and necessary stuff, Allegra(2) carries
umbi-cords, emergency adrenaline shots for the pod, and a sporicidal

52
resonator that cleans porting channels of infection. She’s always ready to
play anywhere, no matter what the consequences are.
Ted(3) and Allegra(3) are agents disguised as workers in the Trout
Farm trying to serve the realist cause. Allegra(3) decides to port into a sick
pod in order to spread the illness to all the other pods. Her mission is to
destroy all the pods inside the factory. The moment she ports into the sick
pod she turns really bad. Ted(3) tries to unport her but he cannot get the
umbi-cord out of her bioport. The creator of games has finally become one
with the game. The organic union becomes literal, they become one body.
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. Becoming one
When Ted(3) wants to cut her free, for the first time the cool girl
says that she’s afraid. This is a very, very human moment, where we hear
what is left of her identity. After Ted(3) cuts the umbi-cord, the cord starts
to bleed and the blood that spills belongs to Allegra(3). As she’s bleeding to
53
death, they fortunately “pop right out of the game.” She cannot bear living a
life without games, a life spent “on the most pathetic level of reality”.
When the pod is broken down by Gas’(2) flawed installation, Ted
cannot understand why Allegra(2) is so upset. She tells him that in the pod
was “the only, the original version of eXistenZ.” And she adds, “I devoted
five of my most passionate years for this strange little creature. And I never
regretted it Pikul. Because I knew it was the only thing that could give my
life a meaning.” The question is, what makes people desperately looking for
a meaning? What makes The Matrix guerrillas jump around with a cell
phone glued to their hand, showing off with mirrored glasses and leather
suits? Can it be the fact that they live in a filthy ship, eating a semi-liquid-
cell-protein-synthetic-amino-combination and listening to Morpheus’ never
ending orders? Can it be the “veal-fattening pen” and all the system behind
that, which makes people, run away into their dark rooms, to wander virtual
reality and walk around in their offices at daytime like pale faced ghosts?
Some do sports, some watch TV, some take drugs and some crawl inside
virtual reality. This isn’t any different from the image addiction portrayed in
The Matrix. In fact this isn’t different from any kind of addiction. People try
to find a way to breath and that’s all.
In this century, the things that we buy such as the telephone, or the
pod, or the computer; are presented as what we need. But these needs are
based on illusions of necessity. They are created to push more green blood
in the market. Finally “the things you own end up owning you.”ix They
become a part of us as it is in the case of Allegra(2) and we don’t even

54
notice that we have become addicts. If they are harmed or lost we cannot
function properly, which is why the position of the consumer is not much
different than that of the junkie. It is a way to pause life, a place to be.
The mechanics of needs and addictions is a crucial element of the
capitalist system. It is a “safety valve” helping people décharge, and in this
way enables them to keep on functioning properly in the system. What’s the
use of spending your time in the “veal-fattening pen”, if there’s nothing to
buy? You watch TV and learn what you “need” to buy, to be what you
should “want” to be, and that is to be rich and attractive. So you go to work
to get the money. Be it money, clothes or heroin, William Burroughs’ words
on addiction makes it clear “Junk is the ideal product… the ultimate
merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer
and beg to buy… the junk merchant does not sell his product to the
consumer, he sells the consumer to the product.” ix Perfect social control.
The recent “clubbing” hype can be an example to explain the “safety
valves”. The social group we may call “clubbers” pay to go to clubs at
weekends. They use extacy, cocaine, amphetamines and drink “power
drinks” loaded with caffeine and taurine. By making it faster they make a
more economic use of time. They wear fancy clothes and dance till the
morning. They buy club music and chill-out cd’s to listen at home. They
buy music magazines to learn what they “need” to wear and listen; where
they “need” to go to party. They do need vitamins and lots of alka-seltzer to
be able to go to work on Monday. They have to work real hard all week to
pay for all these, so they don’t have time to think about politics or whatever
55
is going on around the world. Here comes Friday, they go to the club again
and it goes like this on and on and on. Like the weekend hippies of the 70’s.
The crucial point is that when they’re dancing in the club, or at a golden
dawn in a beach party, they feel free. They feel they are out of the system,
they think they’re doing something that contradicts the system. But this is an
illusion. It’s only make believe. It is what stops you from standing up and
saying “no”. It is oblivion. That is why the revolutionaries of the 60’s used
to shout “We want the world and we want it now” whereas the slogan for
our times is “Another world is possible”. We have forgotten the idea that
another world is possible, while we were busy working and partying. “The
younger generation, who had grown up in this new world, clearly felt no
desire for action or achievement, power or change.”ix
As Marshall Berman speaks of the so called “avant-gardes” in
1840’s Paris he writes “they were at once perceptive and trenchant in their
critiques of capitalism, and at the same time, absurdly complacent in their
faith that they had the power to transcend it, that they could live and work
freely beyond it’s norms and demands.” He adds that “nobody in the
bourgeois society can be so pure, or safe, or free.”ix Freedom is an illusion,
an illusion that serves the system. This kind of pseudo-freedom is
unfortunately a substitute for the police. In Jacques Derrida’s words,
“there’s nothing outside the text.” The cell phones, computers, hacking
career and fancy clothes of The Matrix and the cyber-game system in
eXistenZ are nothing else but a safety valve, and they all have an exclusive
part in the text called life in the capitalist system.

56
otes to Chapter Five

ix
ix
Miller, Edward D, “The Matrix and the Medium’s Message.”
ix
Ibid.
ix
Douglas Rushkoff, Cyberia (New York: Harper Collins, 1993)
p.221
ix
Ibid. p.220-42
ix
Qtd. in ibid. p.229
ix
Ibid. p.260
ix
Ibid. p.239
ix
ix
Fight Club. Dir. David Fincher. Perf. Edward Norton, Brad Pitt
and Helena Bonham Carter. 20th Century Fox, 1999.
ix
ix
Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience
of Modernity (London: Verso, 1997), p.81
ix
Ibid. p.119
57
CHAPTER SIX
FLESHWARE V.S. SUPER-HUMA-MACHIE-BOY
“My grandfather taught me to sail when I was a kid. He made me learn the
stars in case all the G.P.S. satellites fell out of the sky at once. He said
anyone who put his life in the hands of anything run by batteries was a
jackass.”
“The Red Planet”ix
The Matrix is a high-tech movie based on computer technology and
digital effects. However it has a strong techno-phobic taste. Morpheus tells
Neo that throughout history, the human race has always been dependent on
machines to survive. It seems that humans in this film have not learned from
HAL9000 of 2001: A Space Odyssey.ix Similarly, in The Matrix, at an
indefinite point of history, the human race has become slave to the machines
with artificial intelligence it once created. Therefore machines are the major
figure of evil forces and technology is the responsible destructive force
behind all evil and suffering. However, technology is still a major element
of human life. Humans in the real world spend most of their time in ultra-
technological ships if not in the city of Zion. Their life is not only
surrounded but filled in and filled to the brim with technology. They try to
make the most of it to fight and to survive since there’s no other way in a
world deprived of all resources.

58
Beside its destructive aspect, technology is a major symbol of power
in the film. Humans slave to technology fight it, again using the terms of
technology. They live a boring, distasteful life in the real world but they
seek juice and satisfaction in The Matrix where they jump off the buildings
and walk around in “90’s high fashion.” And they have “guns, lots of guns.”
During his training when Neo stays online for ten hours, Tank calls him “a
machine”. When Neo goes to Lafayette Hotel to meet Morpheus for the first
time he is amazed at the sight of analogue machines updated with digital
technology and he admires Trinity for making them on her own. Therefore
these victims of the machines still consider machines as a supreme power,
and in a power oriented paradigm they try to be like machines.
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. Digital point of view
After he is resurrected with Trinity’s kiss, Neo begins to see The
Matrix in digits. When Trinity cries onboard the Nebuchadnezzar, he can

59
hear it in The Matrix. He becomes a machine, capable of doing everything
the machines can do. Moreover, he is also a human. And he can fly too. He
has now become both a superman and a supermachine. He is the ultimate
union of man and the machine, the “super-human-machine-boy”. But behind
all the digits and flesh, actually he is the messiah of a religion worshipping
power.
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. Man in the machine
The technological language and terms used in eXistenZ is also
significant. In the first scene Allegra(2) tells the audience that the
possibilities are great, but people are “programmed” to accept so little. Later
on she tells them she’s ready to “download” eXistenZ by Antenna into all of
them. Likewise, when she speaks of her pod, she calls it “her”. She talks as
if it’s a person. Terms for machinery are used for people, and machines are
referred to as people. What we see here is the mechanisation of the body and
60
“organication” of the machine. Therefore the term “fleshware” used in
eXistenZ defines both the human, and the machine which portrays the
ultimate union of the two in the most natural way possible. And this
naturality is the major difference between the “super-human-machine-boy”
of The Matrix and the “fleshware” of eXistenZ.
Logically the city was the primary source of all technology;
however, the city is again glorified in The Matrix as the outcome of
advanced technology. The skyscrapers and tons of steel make an impressing
picture of the late 20th century. The same love-hate relationship can be
traced in the films portrayal of the city. City is the cage, city is where we
suffer, but it’s a product of high technology. It is something to be “stood and
stared at, a beauty, a genius to be marvelled” as Agent Smith tells
Morpheus. The Oracle’s house with a cosy countryside ambience and her
homemade cookies are in contrast with all the city imagery, but it’s only out
there to add a dash of nostalgia in this liquid digital & steel cocktail, as it is
the case with the analogue machines and antique looking telephones.
Another difference between the two films is that, the gamers in
eXistenZ always have the power to “pause” the game whenever they want
to. On the contrary the guerrillas in The Matrix don’t have the power to
pause the computer simulation which is run by the machines themselves.
And what’s even worse, it is not easy for them to get out of it because they
are hunted down by the agents, sentient programs inside The Matrix.
Besides, if you are killed in The Matrix, you die in real life too and vice
versa. Whereas in eXistenZ, the gamers automatically “pop right out of the
61
game, if there’s a problem.” This situation shows us that cyber technology is
represented as dangerous and even lethal in The Matrix, whereas eXistenZ’s
view of the same issue is safe and comfortable. However in eXistenZ the
gamers are trapped in a labyrinth of multiple games. Even you pause a
game, you never know if you’re still in another game or not. At this point
notions like safety and comfort become irrelevant. The game expands itself
over time and space, and becomes a new kind of hyperreal existence that
challenges the traditional way of life based on singular reality.
The first words we hear in eXistenZ are spoken by the seminar leader
as he represents eXistenZ; “Written like this; small e, capital x, capital z.
eXistenZ.” With these words he warns us that, what we are going to
experience now, whatever it is, has its own rules, its own frames of
reference. A whole new paradigm. This is a world where “existence” has
become a game, sold by a company.
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. “small e, capital x, capital z; existenz”

62
What they are talking about is the most advanced form of virtual
reality technology we can imagine at this point of history. The simulation
created by this game system is not at all different than the reality we’re
living in. They talk about such advanced technology, but they write its name
on the blackboard with a chalk. Everything seems so natural, there’s no
trace of the futuristic worshipping of technology we see in The Matrix. On
the contrary we see that technology has merged into daily life and has
become an organic part of it. Real life(2) and virtual reality(2) are so alike
and close to each other that it creates an uncanny feeling. This situation of
course is in total contrast with the futuristic imagery and ambience of The
Matrix. In The Matrix, the humans “grown” in “endless fields” are attached
to the system with cables. Because of that, the people who are freed from
The Matrix have “plugs” all over their body. They also have a kind of
electrical socket at the back of their head, which enables them to get inside
The Matrix whenever a huge needle like metal device is inserted. Therefore
the humans in The Matrix resemble machines.

63
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. Mechanistation of man
On the contrary, the machines in eXistenZ resemble humans. They are
“fleshware” devices made of organic material. The cables called “umbi-
cords” resemble umbilical cords, the pods look like human organs.
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. eXistenZ gamepod
At one point Ted(2) asks Allegra(2) how come bioports don’t get infected
although they open right into your body. Allegra(2) tells him not to be
ludicrous, then opens her mouth and takes out her tongue. She means that a
bioport which is “shot into your spine after it is popped up with a little
hydrogun” is as natural as all the other orifices in your body. Even the
weapons are made of flesh and bone and they fire human teeth. In this way
it is also possible for them to get past metal and synthetic detectors. The
organic machinery is a sign of the merging of technology into life. It is so
natural and in tune with human life that it’s depicted as organic. However,
64
their extremely weird forms create a discomforting feeling which leads to an
uncanny portrayal of technology.
Along with the fleshware devices, all technology in eXistenZ is
eroticised to the extreme. The sight of gamers in the church is significant.
Eyes closed, they all sit together, their hands slowly playing with the nipples
of the pods that resemble a newly discovered human genital. As an offspring
of organic technology, the bioports and umbi-cords immediately become a
part of life and literally a part of the body. These new genitals are somewhat
odd, but you begin to take pleasure through them at once. This can be
viewed as a collective masturbation scene. However, it is no more curious
than what we see in all offices, banks etc. everday; people looking at plastic
cubes (screens) and playing with a funny ended cable (mouse).
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. Safe sex

65
After Ted(2) gets a bioport for the first time, Allegra(2) lubricates
the hole with a machine oil spray as if it’s an asshole. She tells him that new
ports are a bit tight and she doesn’t want to hurt him. Allegra(2) calls Ted(2)
with his surname all the time and Ted(2) asks her if she could call him just
Ted? She answers “Maybe afterwards.” That is to say, after they play the
game together. The game is an act of intimacy people share, lying or sitting
together, without touching each other. It is the peak of safe sex.
After Ted(2) is ported, Allegra(2) wants to play immediately but Ted
is reluctant. Aroused with anger Allegra(2) wraps the umbi-cord around her
hand, as if a mistress would do before she whips her slave. It is an apparent
sexual reference that we see in here. Allegra(2) has sexual authority over
Ted and she makes use of it frequently. At one point she seduces Ted(2) by
pulling his inserted umbi-cord between her toes. Sometimes she’s motherly,
sometimes friendly, sometimes neurotic and often she’s the mistress. As
mentioned in previous chapters, as a gamer, Allegra(2) is free to perform
multiple roles in a transitory form of identity. She is “everywoman”.
Afterwards Allegra licks the end of the umbi-cord, inserts it in Ted(2), turns
it slightly, they lie on the bed together and the game begins.
Further inside the game they use micropods to enter another game.
These micropods are so small they don’t know what to do with them. The
bioports in the game are also different. Much more weird, more much
uncanny, and all the more erotic. Allegra(2) applies the pod to Ted(2) and
the little animal disappears inside her back. After Ted(2) does Allegra(2),
his game character is sexually aroused which causes him to put his tongue in
66
Allegra’s(2) bioport and lick it. This time we see that the bioport literally
becomes a sexual organ.
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. Lubrication before porting
Unlike the eroticization in eXistenZ, technology represented in The
Matrix is powerful, and fearful. However it can not be defined as a totally
techno-phobic movie. It is rather a two faceted, love-hate relationship that
we see in here. The Matrix has a techno-phobic tone indeed and its overall
message can be regarded again as techno-phobic. However the one thing
that makes it interesting for the average viewer is the technology portrayed
in the film. The bugging device that liquefies and turns into a steel bug, the
extremes that virtual reality can go, humans’ efficiency and control over
virtual reality, the ultra technological machinery are gadgets used as hooks
to mesmerize viewers with the powerful images of technology. Technology
is power and who ever has that is “cool”. Actually the technology portrayed
67
in The Matrix is “sexy”. It is an essential element of the “image
management” that is existent in each and every frame of the film. In
previous chapters I have mentioned that Morpheus almost sells The Matrix
to Neo as if it’s the coolest thing of the century. In the same fashion,
technology becomes the part of an advertising project for “the consumer(s)
of illusion”.ix As it is with the cell-phone advertisements, you never know
what you buy; the product or the life-style. Likewise, ultra-technology and
cyber-space as its complementary are presented as the new hip lifestyle
throughout the film. The Matrix is techno-phobic in discourse but techno-
fetishistic in action and imagery. Andreas Huyssen points that Fritz Lang’s
Metropolis is a “syncretist mixture of the two diametrically opposed views
of technology”; the expressionist view that emphasizes the oppressive and
destructive potential of it and the technology cult of Neue Sachlichkeit.
(New Objectivity)ix In the same manner The Matrix constantly vacillates
between phobia and fetishism, however, we do not see any trace of an effort
to resolve or even question this conflict. eXistenZ can be regarded as techno-
fetishistic too, but this techno-fetishism is totally different than the power
worshipping in The Matrix. We see that in eXistenZ, technology has merged
into life; it has merged into the human body along with the mind. The
fleshware is celebrated, it is natural, and it’s an ordinary element in life. It is
eroticised and fetishized as a site of fascination but it is weird an uncanny
too. That is to say, it is fascinating, but it can bring one to the edge, and you
never know which side you will fall into. Therefore eXistenZ displays an
68
ambivalent approach towards the seemingly ill spoken technology in The
Matrix which is glorified as a symbol of power.
otes to Chapter Six

ix
The Red Planet. Dir. Antony Hoffman. Perf. Val Kilmer, Carrie
Ann Moss. Warner Bros,1999.
ix
2001: A Space Odyssey. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Keir Dullea,
Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester. MGM, 1968.
ix
Guy Debord qtd. in Scott Bukatman, Terminal Identity: The Virtual
Subject in Post-modern Science Fiction (London: Duke University Press,
1993), p.36
ix
Andreas Huyssen, After The Great Divide: Modernism, Mass
Culture, Postmodernism (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986)
p.67-68
69
CHAPTER SEVE
THE EW FLESH
At the beginning of The Matrix, although he has his own intuition
and doubts, Neo thinks that the world he’s been living is real. When he is
arrested by the agents, they take him into a room full of screens to
interrogate him. First they try to negotiate and talk him into switching sides.
Neo is self-confident and does not hesitate to give them “the finger”. He
asks his “phone call”, the unquestionable right of every American citizen.
Until here everything is solid. But Neo’s behavior begins to get on Agent
Smith’s digital nerves, thus he decides to teach him a lesson about what he’s
messing with; “Tell me Mr. Anderson, what good is a phone call if you’re
unable to speak?” Right that moment Neo’s mouth disappears. This is
something impossible, it can’t be real. But he cannot open his mouth to cry
out. A second later he witnesses a most obnoxious sight taking place in his
own body.
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. Losing reality of the body

70
An electronic device that liquefies into a translucid bug before his
very eyes is inserted in his body through his belly button. This is the
moment where he is faced with the fact that all he has experienced until then
is irrelevant and invalid. His first and strongest encounter with the fact that
reality is not what he has thought to be, takes place in his own body. The
fortress of our own reality. Mouse in The Matrix says that “to deny our own
impulses, (which relates to the body) is to deny the very thing that makes us
human.” But when you enter virtual reality, you leave your body behind.
There is a strong, undeniable correlation between reality and the body.
The uncanny imagery in eXistenZ is created by using the human
body as a technological “landscape”. The reason behind that will be clearer
if we keep in mind the words of Scott Bukatman about the notion of body in
the Cronenberg film. Bukatman points that “the rabid physicality of the
Cronenberg text belongs firmly to the traditions of the horror film:
‘monsters from the id’ are rendered physical, and figures of desire roam the
landscape. One significant difference is that the landscape is now the body
of the protagonist, and the confusions, tumours, lesions and the new
organelles are the “monsters” roaming free.” Scott Bukatman’s argument
can be summarized in a single sentence he quotes from Arthur Kroker: “The
body (becomes) the over determined metaphorical site for the expression of
profound social anxiety.”ix
Ted(2) in eXistenZ is extremely insecure about his body. That is why
he doesn’t have a bioport. “I have this phobia about having my body

71
penetrated. Surgically… you know what I mean. (…) It’s too freaky, makes
my skin crawl.” Ted(2) has never played any virtual reality games because
he didn’t have a bioport. His fear of getting a bioport fitted is the sign of his
fear of virtual reality. Ted also fears that such penetration will alter his
sexuality and transform him into a woman. It is the fear of losing virginity, a
fear of rape. eXistenZ breaks down the barriers between sexual roles as well
as reality and fantasy. The visual and conceptual eroticisation of technology
in eXistenZ results in getting mutual effects from either stimulus. Sexual
roles getting in close proximity along with reality and illusion are matters of
virginity. Ted fears them both. Through this little hole that opens right into
your body, you attach yourself to virtual reality with an umbi-cord. As you
enter virtual reality, you are penetrated by virtual reality and technology as
well. Ted’s(2) fear of getting a bioport has another reason again related to
the body, the chance of getting a permanent spinal paralysis during the
process of getting a bioport. The spinal paralysis state is not much different
than the position of the people in virtual reality. Their bodies lie or sit
somewhere quietly. The guerrillas in The Matrix are also penetrated by
electronic devices and they lie down in a state of inertia. It’s “travelling
without moving.”ix There’s no place for the actual body in virtual space, it is
left behind. But it keeps on functioning as a site of pleasure and pain in
eXistenZ, whereas the guerrillas in The Matrix are not interested in bodily
pleasures in the virtual space since it is condemned as “inauthentic”.
Both in eXistenZ and The Matrix we see the “battery” used as a
metaphor of the human body. Morpheus tells Neo that “human body
72
generates more bio-electricity than a 120 volt battery and over 25,000
BTU’s of body heat.” He explains Neo that the machines have changed
human beings into a power source, and shows him a 1.5 volt Duracell
battery. Then we understand why Switch used to call Neo a “copper top”. A
similar revelation takes place in eXistenZ as Kiri Vinokur(3) explains Ted(2)
how the pods work. “eXistenZ gamepod is basically an animal Mr. Pikul.”
Ted(2) naively asks “Where do the batteries go?” Vinokur(3) thinks he’s
joking but Allegra(2) is there to answer. “It ports into you. You’re the
power source. Your body, your metabolism, your energy. You get tired, run
down, it won’t work properly.” This moment of revelation is far from being
a tragic moment as it is in The Matrix. Whereas humans are unconsciously
used as batteries by the machines in The Matrix, the gamers in eXistenZ
voluntarily share their bodies and energy with the meta-flesh machines. That
is because they are crippled and paralysed by the system. Ted’s(2) fear of
spinal paralysis has already come true but he doesn’t know that. People play
the virtual reality games in order to experience what they cannot in real life.
They voluntarily leave their body behind and float in a realm free of matter.
Ted(3) and Allegra(3) play a game at Darcy Nader’s(3) game
emporium. In order to play they use micropods. When the micropod
disappears behind his back Ted(4) panics. “It’s in my spine? It’s working its
way around my spinal chord?” To help him calm down Allegra(3) reminds
him that it is just a game and not real. His body is safely lying on a bed in
the ski hut. In contrast, the things happening to your body in virtual reality
affect your actual body in The Matrix. At one point during his training, Neo
73
falls from a high building during an educational simulation program. When
he is out of the program and back in real life he notices that his mouth is
bleeding. He cannot understand why. “I thought it wasn’t real.” Morpheus
tells him that his mind makes it real. Neo asks him if you die in real life
when you are killed the Matrix. Morpheus tells him that the body cannot
live without the mind. That is to say whatever the mind may do in virtual
reality, our body is our connection to reality. The body is in contrast with
the slippery, vague position of the mind in virtual reality. The body is
presented as the ultimate link to reality in The Matrix.
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. The micropod, a little animal
If we get back to Ted(3) and Allegra(3), after porting the micropods
they are aroused and they start kissing. But their arousal is nothing more
than a game urge. Allegra(3) calls it “most probably a pathetically
mechanical attempt to heighten the emotional tension of the next game

74
sequence.” This bodily action reminds Ted(3) of his own real body. “Where
are our real bodies? Are they alright? What if they’re hungry, what if there’s
danger? (…) I feel really vulnerable, disembodied.” Ted(3) is confused.
Getting into a bodily action that involves sensory experience in a virtual
space where there is no physical matter, therefore no “body” is too much for
him. This is where boundaries and definitions disappear and the whole
system of ideas related to binary oppositions such as mind/body and virtual
reality/reality go down with them.
In contrast with the accustomed mind/ body, virtual reality/reality
dichotomy in The Matrix, eXistenZ elaborates the question and brings us to
a point where existence is a conflict of mind, body and technology in a
hyperreal universe. Scott Bukatman puts it that “the dissolution of identity
into new forms is increasingly posited as a consequence of contemporary
existence, connected to the rise of new technologies” in Cronenberg’s films.
He adds that “the apparent mind-body dichotomy is superseded by the
tricotomy of mind/body/machine.” The tension revolving around this
tricotomy in eXistenZ is far beyond in meaning than the “man versus
machine” discourse in The Matrix. This is where a new paradigm starts, in
which the boundaries between the body, mind and technology disappear into
something else. Something we may call again with a Cronenberg term; “The
New Flesh”.
75
otes to Chapter Seven

ix
Scott Bukatman, Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Post-
modern Science Fiction (London: Duke University Press, 1993), p.81
ix
The name of a song by Jamiroquai
76
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE CAGE
Before being taken out of the Matrix, Neo is taken to Lafayette
Hotel, where Morpheus tells him about the Matrix. “Let me tell you why
you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you
can’t explain. But you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life. That there’s
something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is but it is there,
like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.” What he is talking about is,
the Matrix. “The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this
very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you
turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go
to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over
your eyes to blind you from the truth.” Neo knows how it feels, but he
doesn’t know what it is. “What truth?” Morpheus answers, “That you are a
slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage, born into a
prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind.”
And what about reality? Morpheus takes Neo inside a computer
program in order to explain him the current condition of the world so that he
will understand what exactly the Matrix is. At first Neo cannot believe what
he is experiencing is a computer simulation, and not real. “This isn’t real?”.
Morpheus’ answer is tricky. “What is real? How do you define real? If you
are talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste
and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”
77
What he means is that we cannot define real with sensory perception but
ironically he has already given examples of sensory experience at the
Lafayette Hotel, in order to define the Matrix; “a prison that you cannot
smell or taste or touch”. That is to say, we cannot define real with our senses
but we define virtual reality with them. Actually he does not exactly define
“real” but the whole movie is a quest for reality and the only criteria of
reality is “authenticity”. Experience and perception in virtual space does not
count as real. Reality is not defined but it is out there, it is an obscure telos
that the guerrillas are fighting for.
After Allegra(2) talks Ted(2) into getting a bioport, they go to a local
gas station to have it installed. It turns out that the operator of the station,
Gas, is a gamer and a big fan of Allegra(2) too. He says that Allegra’s(2)
games have changed his life. Before the operation Ted(2) and Gas(2) have a
little talk. Ted(2) asks him what his life was like before it was changed by
Allegra Geller(2). His answer is peculiar, “I operated a gas station.” Ted
cannot understand. “You still operate a gas station don’t you?” Gas says
“Only on the most pathetic level of reality. Geller’s work liberated me.” Just
when he’s about to have the bioport fitted Ted(2) changes his mind and
decides not have it. Without a bioport he cannot enter virtual reality and
play games. Allegra(2) knows that his fear of “being penetrated surgically”
is the sign of his fear of virtual reality along with his sexual insecurity.
“This is it you see. This is the cage of your own making which keeps you
trapped and pacing in the smallest possible space forever. Break out of your
cage Pikul, break out now.”

78
Here we see that the reality fought for in The Matrix is considered as
“pathetic” in eXistenZ. And as for virtual reality, in The Matrix it is defined
as “a prison for the mind” whereas in eXistenZ reality itself is “the cage”
instead of virtual reality. The cage is a metaphor used by Max Weber in his
Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism. The “iron cage” of Max
Weber is a symbol of the “mighty cosmos of the modern economic order”.ix
Marshall Berman writes;
(Thus,) not only is modern society a cage, but all

the people in it are shaped by its bars; we are
beings without spirit, without heart, without
sexual or personal identity (…) we might almost
say without being. Here, just as in futurist and
techno-pastoral forms of modernism, modern
man as a subject – as a living being capable of
response, judgement and action in and on the
world – has disappeared.ix
Marshall Berman adds that Max Weber did not have much confidence in
humanity, but even less in the ruling classes;
Ironically, twentieth century critics of “the iron

cage” adopt the perspective of the cage’s keepers:
since those inside are devoid of inner freedom or
dignity, the cage is not a prison; it merely
furnishes a race of nullities with the emptiness
they crave and need.ix
It is important that the cage/prison metaphor is used for virtual reality in The
Matrix and for real life in eXistenZ. The Matrix’s approach is not to deny the
prison but to deny the reason behind that. This is not much different than the
ruling class’ argument on why the cage is not a prison. “The Matrix is a
system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look
79
around. What do you see? Business men, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The
very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people
are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy.” They seem
to have dedicated themselves to save those people who are assimilated while
sleeping, and their motivation is to get back to reality. Virtual reality is
worthless and invalid. But they gallivant in the Matrix in isolating mirrored
shades and eye-catching, designer-cut outfit, with guns. “The Matrix” way
to deny the prison is to say that there is something wrong in this world, it is
like a cage but this cannot be real, some evil artificial intelligence must have
caused all this.
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. Prada wear
When they go to the ski hut which is in fact Kiri Vinokur’s(2)
laboratory. Ted(2) asks Allegra(2) what would happen if someone really
comes up there and really wants to ski. Allegra(2) tells him that nobody
actually skis any more. They play a virtual ski game instead. That is why
80
Allegra(2) uses a ski boot as a bag. What’s the use of a ski boot if you don’t
even need to wait for the snow? At the beginning of the film a focus group
is gathered in a rural church. A young boy comes late and Ted(2) who is in
charge, scans him and his belongings. The boy asks him if it’s a weapons
check. Ted(2) tells him that they check people more for recording devices.
“A lot of money invested in these games Noel.” The virtual reality games
are the “hype” in this world. You can get bioports installed at malls. There
are several game companies. Antenna Research and Cortical Systematics
are the largest and most powerful ones. These rival companies are fighting
an invisible war. Cortical Systematics try to kill Allegra(2) and steal her
most recent game/system. In order to do this they hire assassins, manipulate
and take advantage of the Realist Underground who believe these games to
be the menace of the century. Agents, double agents and moles abound. You
cannot trust anyone so Allegra(2) doesn’t ever let Ted(2) or Kiri Vinokur(2)
contact Antenna. The relationship between all these forces is all too
complicated and not very clear. But the reason is crystal clear and obviously
green.
Both films take place in worlds where people are consciously or
unconsciously attached to virtual reality. But the reasons behind that expose
two drastically different points of view. In The Matrix, people are plugged
into machines and they live in virtual reality but they’re unconscious of their
situation. When you look at eXistenZ, people again spend most of their time
in virtual reality but this is their own choice. As mentioned in previous
chapters, the virtual reality games in eXistenZ are safety valves of the
81
system. Gas(2) can keep on operating the gas station because he satisfies
himself by being an “ArtGod” in a game. So he keeps on working, the fuel
company gets its way; he keeps on playing, the game company gets its way,
so he doesn’t stand up and pause the biggest game, the system itself. There
is a huge web of capital and power behind all this technology and the
capitalist system is the obvious reason why the world has come to this.
However, the reason for a similar situation in The Matrix, are the evil
machines.
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. “Evil”
The tragic flaw of human kind was to play god and therefore create
artificial intelligence. The devilish artificial intelligence as the source of
evil, abstracts the idea and puts all relevant and logical reasons out of focus.
Therefore The Matrix is in a position of denial of the original reason behind
the cage which is the capitalist system. Such positioning deviates the subject
towards a power oriented, pseudo-resolution. The verbal, didactic

82
expression in The Matrix presents a false criticism of the system. The war of
the attractive and chic heroes, for an obscure telos has no relation to our life.
It is a signifier without a signified, a simulation of something that does not
exist. A wrong answer to a misleading question.
What is denied in The Matrix is present in eXistenZ. The tragedy of
people living in a capitalist system, and the power dynamics behind that is
all there for us to see. eXistenZ is not a didactic “answer” like The Matrix .
The question in The Matrix is the reason behind the uneasiness caused by
urban lifestyle.
According to the film the reason is the evil machines, and the nerve
of human kind to play god. But we don’t have to worry, because it’s not
real. On the other hand, eXistenZ is a dystopia where we find all we are
already going through. It is a question which involves a readerly action. The
question is there only if you choose to ask yourself. A question that forces
the viewer to interact in this chaotic existence, involving both fascination
and fear. It is the simulation of a world lost in an endless spiral of
simulations.
otes to Chapter Eight

ix
Qtd. in Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The
Experience of Modernity (London: Verso, 1997) p.27
ix
Ibid. p.27
ix
Ibid. p.28
83
CHAPTER IE
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GLASS
All is nothing, but one and cipher, you see;

Come wind me up, digital prophecy
Virtual apocalypse, I am at your mercy…ix
As mentioned in the previous chapter, the metaphor of the
cage/prison used in both films have a strong allusion to Plato’s cave.
According to the cave metaphor, people live inside a cave whose wide
entrance is open to the light coming from outside.
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. Reality sneaked in the cave
The people who are born and raised in the cave are chained in such a
way that they cannot move or turn around. They can only look forward. The
only light source in the place is far above and behind them. These people do
not see any actual objects, but they see their shadows reflected on the inner
wall of the cave. Their reality is based on the shadows itself. If one of them
84
is freed and let outside, at first he will not be able to see anything as his eyes
aren’t used to the light outside.ix When the freed person gets used to the
light outside he will be able to see the objects as they really are. At that
point if somebody comes up to him and tells that all he had seen until then is
an illusion, he would believe that the shadows he had seen all his life to be
more real. Then he would get used to the reality outside. After a period of
time, if he was taken back to the cave, all the other people inside the cave
would think that he had ruined his eyesight when he was outside, and they
would make fun of him. Plato tells Glaucon, if he tried to tell them that the
shadows were not real, and tried to take them out of the cave, they would
probably kill him.ix
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. Loading...

In The Matrix the distinction between real life and the Matrix is
drastic. The transitions full of digital visuals and annoying digital sound
effects are harsh and disturbing. Almost as if it is painful. On the contrary

85
the transitions in eXistenZ are so very smooth and even pleasant. The first
time Ted(2/3) enters a game being a virtual-reality-phobic, even he is
impressed by the smooth transition. “That was beautiful. I feel just like me.
Is that kind of transition normal? That kinda smooth interlacing from place
to place?”
Fig. Hata! Yalnızca Ana Belge. Smooth interlacing
Besides transitions, the portrayal of contrast between real and virtual
in two films are drastically different. In The Matrix, virtual reality is exactly
like the world as it is in the year 1999. And real one is a deserted world with
a scorched sun. Ironically enough, the film takes place in another space
between the two. Technology itself becomes a space in The Matrix in which
the guerillas dwell. The difference between the real and the virtual is not so
clear in eXistenZ. The game realities have the same elements and objects
such as jobs, game-pods etc. The images and themes we come across
repeatedly in all the levels tend to get more weird as the rabbit hole goes
86
deeper. The bio-ports and pods in level one are made of plastic. They
become organic in level two; they are “made of fertilized amphibian eggs
filled with synthetic DNA”. In level three, there are micropods that
disappear in the body and the bio-ports are kind of like a Martian organelle,
something even hard to imagine. When we come to the fourth level, it all
gets too far. “Can you believe the game version of your pod? It’s sick, but
so convincing. I mean, using mutated animals in nervous systems as game-
pod parts is easily feasible. But everything here is so dirty, absurd,
grotesque.” The objects and themes getting even more weird by the levels
are impressions rather than replicas. These projections create a dream or
parallel universe feeling. However, gradually we discover that they are
irregular and without a certain pattern. In the first scene at the church which
takes place in the second level of reality, we come across a gun made of
flesh and bone. In the fourth level Ted(4) puts together the parts of his meal
and constitutes the same gun. After he kills the Chinese waiter, a white dog
takes the gun away. When they go back to the third level, Hugo(3) hands
them the gun and tells that Darcy Nader’s(3) dog has brought it. Further in
the film, Allegra and Ted are lost in the levels of reality and so are we. This
time Kiri Vinokur has the gun and he tells his dog has brought this. By the
end of the film we understand that all this had been a game all along the
way. This is were we learn that the dog belongs to Ted(1), in whose fur
Ted(1) hides an ordinary gun. Everything gets so complicated and chaotic as
all images and themes get folded one over another. The result is an endless
spiral of super-impositions. Ted(4) explains how it all feels, “ I don’t like it

87
here. I don’t know what’s going on. We’re both stumbling around in this
unformed world, whose logic and objectives are largely unknown, seemingy
indecipherable, or even possibly non-existent, always on the verge of being
killed by forces we don’t understand” He tells Allegra(4) that this game is
not gonna be easy to market. She says that it’s a game everybody’s already
playing. Actually it is the game we all are playing, as such definition
applies to our world and our times perfectly.
When Neo goes back in the Matrix for the first time, he is certainly
convinced that it is virtual and not real. He goes through places he used to
eat, places he had memories. He calls them unreal. However in eXistenZ,
going back in reality results in a trauma for Ted. His real life feels
completely unreal. “It’s worse than that. I’m not sure. I-I’m not sure here
where we are is real at all. This feels like a game to me.”
Ted is like a virgin before having his bio-port fitted. Virtual reality is
a matter of virginity for humanity. But it has already happened.
Multiplication of reality has resulted in a hyperreal universe. According to
Jean Baudrillard this is “the Perfect Crime”; and “the murder of the real” is
one that is more tragic than Nietzsche proclaiming the death of god.
Let us be clear about this: if the Real is

disappearing, it is not because a lack of it-on the
contrary, there is too much of it. It is the excess
of reality that puts an end to reality, just as the
excess of information puts an end to information,
or the excess of communication puts an end to
communication.ix
88
Brian Massumi brings it up that there must be another choice than being a
“naive realist” or being a “sponge”. He adds that Gilles Deleuze and Felix
Guattari open a third way.
Baudrillard sidesteps the question of whether

simulation replaces a real that did indeed exist, or
if simulation is all there has ever been. Deleuze
and Guattari say yes to both. The alternative is a
false one because simulation is a process that
produces the real, or, more precisely, more real (a
more-than-real) on the basis of the real. “It carries
the real beyond its principle to the point where it
is effectively produced.” (…) “Simulation,”
Deleuze and Guattari write, “does not replace
reality… but rather it appropriates reality in the
operation of despotic overcoding, it produces
reality on the new full body that replaces the
earth. It expresses the appropriation and
production of the real by a quasi-source.ix
Once you get out of the cave, and you see the objects as they really
are, things will never be the same even if you get back in the cave. Your
perception of reality will be changed, you will live the rest of your life in a
hyperreal universe and there’s no turning back from that. Knowledge
through experience is something that tends to increase only. The red pill in
The Matrix has the same characteristic. Morpheus offers two choices to
Neo;
Unfortunately, no one can be told what the

Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is
your last chance. After this there is no turning
back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you
wake up in your bed and believe whatever you
want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in
Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit
hole goes.
89
Accordingly, once you get out of the cave, even if you go back in the
Matrix you will still know that there’s another reality out there. Cypher’s
choice is not an exception as it is an intended state of amnesia. Entering
virtual reality conciously as Neo does is that step out of the cave. It is the
reason behind Ted’s(2) fears and the Realist Underground’s objection.
The Matrix emphasizes the binary oppositions such as good-evil,
absence-presence, cyberspace-real space, authenticity-synthetic experience,
deception-honesty. In this context, eXistenZ is not the opposite of The
Matrix, it is beyond The Matrix. It pulls down all the oppositions and
creates a whole new paradigm where there are no rules. This is an insecure,
undiscovered realm, yet it is “awfully familiar”. The realists are disturbed
by the new “disorder”. What frightens them is the “changeability” of the
rules. Such slippery ground is too much for them. And when we look at The
Matrix, the rules themselves are not important; what matters is who puts and
keeps them.
otes to Chapter ine

ix
This little poem is taken from my own writings
ix
Plato, “Republic :Book VII” Ethics: History, Theory and
Contemporary Issues Ed. Steven M Cahn and Peter Markie (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1998) p.1132
ix
Ibid. p.1132
ix
Jean Baudrillard, The Vital Illusion (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2000) p.66
ix
Massumi, Brian; “Realer Than Real: The Simulacrum According to
Deleuze and Guattari.” Australian National University Humanities Research
http://www.anu.edu.au/HRC/first_and_last/works/realer.htm
90
COCLUSIO
Science fiction and fantasy works create fabulous worlds in distant
futures and unknown dimensions, full of all sorts of incredible things. No
matter how far out of our reality they may be, they all tell us a very familiar
story. They all tell us about our world, our times and ourselves. I chose to
study The Matrix and eXistenZ in order to take a look at our own lives, in
the light of these films’ opposing points of view. I explored the socio-
economical motivations and consequences of the hyperreal situtation we’re
living in. I believe that the study of virtual reality and technology can be a
suitable path in understanding the nature of our hyperreal universe. The
Matrix and eXistenZ serve as a double microcosmos to study these
motivations and consequences, as they both create worlds in close proximity
to virtual reality and consider the same matter in opposing points of view.
I studied the two films’ portrayal of life in general, in order to create
a picture that involves miscellaneous elements of contemporary existence. I
believe that the study of the multi faceted aspects of our highly
“technologized” life, can help us understand why we have come to this state
of hyperreality, and also help us explain the oddities in our lives which are
probably the results of the same phenomenon.
Both The Matrix and eXistenZ relate to our contemporary form of
existence, revolving around the phenomenon of career. The estrangement
and boredom caused by the working life is strongly emphasized in both

91
films. The dissatisfaction caused by the endless cycle of work, home and
weekend, results in seeking satisfaction in virtual reality as well as in
consumerism; of objects, images and signs. Such forms of satisfaction
constitute the illusions of necessity in our society. These pseudo-needs serve
the system both as a continuous source of income and a perfect silencer.
eXistenZ reflects virtual reality as a form of recreation that transforms into a
pseudo-need, and further into an addiction, whereas The Matrix creates a
world of images, reflecting the image addiction as another form of
consumerism. The subject of virtual reality and technology is condemned as
inauthentic and destructive of human values, but ironically presented as
attractive and even fascinating throughout the film. It is ironic that The
Matrix seems to resist its own subject matter; hyperreality and technology.
The film is conservative of the acquainted, definite and static perception of
notions such as time, identity and belief. But in eXistenZ we see that all
these notions are mutating and transforming into their own projections in a
new, hyperreal paradigm. The binary oppositions preserved in The Matrix
dissolve into a thousand pieces in eXistenZ and project a different picture
every time you look.
The Matrix’ resistance of hyperreality is clearly visible in its
portrayal of virtual reality as a prison. On the contrary, eXistenZ presents
reality as the cage. In eXistenZ, virtual reality is portrayed and questioned as
a natural consequence of contemporary existence. I believe it’s a more
realistic approach to present contemporary existence as an ongoing conflict
involving technology, virtual reality and hyperreality as undeniable

92
components like eXistenZ does, rather than the insistent position of denial
The Matrix portrays.
My subjective opinion is that the hyperreal life-style is irreversible,
and humanity has already made this choice. At this point, ethics must be the
crucial question that will determine the course of the new (dis)order. We’re
living in mirrorland, an endless spiral of mirrors, of all kinds and shapes.
Virtual reality and the so called reality are the equally real and equally
fantastic lands stretching on the two sides of these mirrors. But the mirror
itself is “liquefying”. The boundaries disappear, reference points multiply
and degenerate. “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold, Mere anarchy is
loosed upon the world”ix But it is not a time for mourning. Neither it calls
for a celebration. Change is the essence of existence and “what is happening
can’t be avoided”.ix
otes to the Conclusion

ix
William Butler Yeats qtd. in David Harvey, The Condition of
Postmodernity (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995)
ix
Friedrich Nietzsche
93
EPILOGUE
“In a Wonderland they lie,

Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream,
Lingering in the golden gleam,
Life, what is it but a dream? ”
Lewis Carroll, “Through The Looking Glass”.
I’m Sona Ertekin. I believe that I exist in this very moment, in this
place. I live in Đstanbul; a peculiar place on earth to exist, where strange
things happen everyday. But you get used to it. The world is getting stranger
everyday; well, that’s ok because you cannot change one thing, and that is
change. But still there’s something wrong. I’ve always had this feeling that
there’s something wrong with this world but I don’t know what it is. Maybe
it’s because it feels quite, unreal. I turn on the tv, and what I see does not
seem to be real. After all the war films I have seen, watching the wars “live”
feels completely unreal. The news on the paper, the smiling faces on ads,
the fact that people go to work everyday and spend hours in front of their
computer screens, and so on. It feels as if it’s not real…
When I was a kid I was deeply interested in horror films. I took
ravishing pleasure while watching them, yet I could not even sleep in the
fearful afterhours. I used to tell myself those creatures, killers and spacemen
are not real. They are impersonated by actors in studios. And even better
94
was the idea that those actors and studios were actually in America, which is
far enough. For sure I used to know that those creatures were not real, they
could not harm me. But the fear, was real.
I guess my skeptical approach towards reality since childhood,
brought me here, to write a thesis about reality, to express my feeling, that
the reality that surrounds us… is not so real. The constantly changing world
is so different today that knowledge of time, space and identity is not a
proof of reality. Because reality is not a singular whole any more. It is rather
an endless realm of multiple layers, all existing both on their own and in
relation to the others.
When I was in my teens, I used to have a diary. On one side of this
notebook I used to write my experiences in daily life and my dreams on the
other side. As time passed by, I discovered that the more I were involved in
dreams, the more I remebered them. Strange dream versions of my house,
school and neigbourhood began to appear in my dreams repetitively, always
looking the same, in their own dream way. They began to get more
complex, as I slowly got able to be “aware” that I was dreaming when I
dreamt. In this way I could direct my own dreams and do whatever I wanted
there. Dream events divided by real life, continued at nighttime. Finally my
diary came to reflect to lives; one spent in ordinary reality, and one in
dreams. Then I began to question who is to say that dreams are not real.
Today I’m twenty-five years old. Everything around me is so
strange. I live in a hyperreal universe where people feed on signs and

95
socialize without getting out of their dark rooms. I watch the newscast on
TV and I don’t have a clue what’s going on around the world. Whatever I
do, I help someone get more rich and make someone get even more poor.
Nothing is what it seems. Nothing seems to be real. I try to understand why.
This work is part of my effort to understand and express “why”.
In an earlier scene in eXistenZ, Ted kills the Chinese waiter and all
the “game characters” in the restaurant stand still. Ted tells them it’s just a
misunderstanding over the check. By the end of eXistenZ, Ted and Allegra
kill Yevgeny Nourish. At the site of this cold-blooded homicide “the
gamers” around them stand still. After all the “twists and turns” they are lost
within multiple realities and cannot be sure if they’re still in a game or not.
And after all the murders they have witnessed or commited inside the
games, they are nullified, they cannot react or respond. Nothing seems to be
real. The last words in the film are significant. It is a question asked by a
gamer; “Hey, tell me the truth, are we still in the game?” Ironically,
multiplicity of reality in a way eliminates the notion of virtual reality, since
all is real. All sorts of dreams and nightmares flood in through the liquid
glass… I still believe in dreams.

96
WORKS CITED
Arslantunalı, Mustafa; Ayçöreği: Teknoloji, Dil ve Đletişim Üzerine

Denemeler Đstanbul: Đletişim, 1992
Azmi Bishara, “Casualty of Truth: Even Hollywood May Not Be Able To

Save the Story of Private Lynch,” Al Ahram 09 Jun.2003, Z Net:
http://www.znet.org
2001: A Space Odyssey. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Keir Dullea, Gary
Lockwood, William Sylvester. MGM, 1968.
Baudrillard, Jean; Symbolic Exchange and Death London: Sage
Publications, 1993
Baudrillard, Jean; The Vital Illusion New York: Columbia University
Press, 2000
Berman, Marshall; All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of
Modernity London: Verso, 1997
Berman, Marshall; “Why Modernism Still Matters.” Modernity and
Identity. Ed.Scott Lash and Jonathan Friedman. Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers, 1993.
Blakesley, David; “Eviscerating Cronenberg.” Enculturation: A Journal of
Rhetoric, Writing and Culture
http://enculturation.gmu.edu/2_1/blakesley/
Bukatman, Scott; Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Post-modern

Science Fiction London: Duke University Press, 1993
97
Carroll, Lewis; Alice Harikalar Ülkesinde Ankara: Milli Eğitim Basımevi,
1946
Carroll, Lewis; “Through the Looking-Glass” Project Gutenberg and
Duncan Research Shareware
http://rabbit.eng.miami.edu/text/carroll/lookingglass
Coupland, Douglas; Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture
London: 1997
Crosby, Mark; “Reflections Upon The Matrix.” Film Philosophy
http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol4-2000/n3wright
Du Prie, Daniel; “Utopia and Simulation in The Matrix.”
http://members.tripod.com/~duPrie/essays/matrixhtm
eXistenZ. Dir. David Cronenberg. With Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law, Ian
Holm and Don McKellar. Serendipity, 1999.
Featherstone, Mike; “The Body in Consumer Culture” Theory, Culture and
Society: Explorations in Critical Social Sciences Vol:1 No:2, 1982.
Fight Club. Dir. David Fincher. Perf. Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and Helena
Bonham Carter. 20th Century Fox, 1999.
Gökberk, Macit; Felsefe Tarihi Đstanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1994
Hamilton, Edith; Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes New

York: Mentor, 1969
Hill, John; “Film and Postmodernism.” Film Studies: Critical Approaches.
Ed. John Hill. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

98
Huyssen, Andreas; After The Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture,

Postmodernism Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986
Harvey, David; The Condition of Postmodernity Cambridge: Blackwell,

1995
Hassan, Ihab; “The Culture of Postmodernism” Theory, Culture and
Society: Explorations in Critical Social Sciences Vol:2 No:3, 1985.
Lafargue, Paul; “The Right To Be Lazy”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/works/lazy/
Levery, David; “From Cinespace To Cyberspace: Zionists and Agents,
Realists and Gamers in The Martix and eXistenZ.”
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m0412/4_28/68741268/p1/article.h
tml
Massumi, Brian; “Realer Than Real: The Simulacrum According to Deleuze
and Guattari.” Australian National University Humanities Research
http://www.anu.edu.au/HRC/first_and_last/works/realer.htm
The Matrix. Dir. Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski. Perf. Keanu
Reeves, Carrie Ann Moss and Lawrence Fishburn. Warner,1999.
Miller, Edward D.; “The Matrix and the Medium’s Message.” Social Policy
Online Edition
Morley, David; “Postmodernism: the Rough Guide.” Cultural Studies and
Communication. Ed. James Curran, David Morley and Valerie
Walkerdine. London: Arnold, 2002.

99
Necmi Zeka, “Introduction:Yolları Çatallanan Bahçe, Aynalı Gökdelenler,
Dil Oyunları ve Robespierre,” Postmodernizm, ed. Necmi Zeka
Đstanbul: Kıyı Yayınları, 1994.
Plato; “Republic :Book VII” Ethics: History, Theory and Contemporary

Issues Ed Steven M Cahn and Peter Markie New York: Oxford University
Press, 1998
The Red Planet. Dir. Antony Hoffman. Perf. Val Kilmer, Carrie Ann Moss.
Warner Bros,1999.
Wells, HG; A Short History of the World London: Penguin Books, 1962
Wright, Richard; “The Matrix Rules” Film Philosophy
http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol4-2000/n3wright
100
APPEDIX I
PLOT SUMMARY OF THE MATRIX
In the future, the world is under the rule of machines with artificial
intelligence. Zion is the only human city left over the world. During the war
between man and the machines, human beings have scorched the sun in
order to deprive the machines of solar energy. Finding out they can use the
bodily energy of human beings, the machines have created a computer
simulated world called “The Matrix” to pacify their new energy source. In
this way, human beings live with the illusion that they live in 1999, that is
before the artificial intelligence took over. Actually they are “grown” in
artificial wombs in power plantations, plugged into the machines and fed the
liquefied remains of the dead. Thomas Anderson (Neo) is one of the
somnambulists in The Matrix. He is freed and taken out of The Matrix by a
group of guerrillas fighting the machines. The leader of the group,
Morpheus believes Neo to be “the one”, the long awaited savior as
prophesied. However, Neo is hesitant and cannot believe that he is destined
to be the savior of human race. After a period of adaptation and training,
Neo is ready to fight along with the people of Zion. Morpheus takes Neo to
see the oracle inside The Matrix. The oracle tells Neo that he is not “the
one”, but at a certain point of his life, he will have to choose between his
life and Morpheus’. One of the members of the crew, Cypher betrays the
guerrilla force and helps the agents track them down in The Matrix. The
101
agents corner the guerrillas in an old hotel. Morpheus gives himself in, in
order to save Neo and the others. Meanwhile, Cypher is on board the
guerrilla ship Nebuchadnezzar, killing them one by one. As he is about to
kill Neo, he is killed by Tank, another guerilla. In this way, Neo and Trinity
get out of The Matrix and return onboard the ship. Back in The Matrix, the
agents interrogate Morpheus in order to break him down and learn the code
that will enable them to enter Zion. It is time for Neo to decide between his
life and Morpheus’. Accompanied with lieutenant Trinity, he enters The
Matrix to save Morpheus. Together they fight the agents and save him.
Consequently, Neo discovers his own power and begins to believe in
himself. Meanwhile, the agents keep on chasing them. Morpheus and
Trinity get out of The Matrix. As Neo is just about to get out, he is
confronted with an agent. However he chooses to stand and fight. He gets
killed during the fight but he does not die; he is resurrected as a super-
human, capable of doing everything the machines can do, and even more. At
that moment he discovers that he really is “the one”. Both Zion and
Nebuchadnezzar are saved for the time being but the war of human beings
against the machines will continue, with “the one”.

102
APPEDIX II
PLOT SUMMARY OF eXistenZ
Allegra Geller is a star virtual-reality-game designer. She attends a
focus group in a rural church for the product testing of her latest
game/system eXistenZ. As they are about to play the game, an assasin
attacks and shoots Allegra with a weird organic gun shooting human teeth.
She runs away with a marketing trainee called Ted. She mistakenly thinks
Ted is her bodyguard. They take refuge in a motel. They are being chased
down by Realists who are against virtual-reality-games, and by the rival
game company. Allegra is suspicious of her own game company too.
Allegra’s game-pod which contains the only and original version of
eXistenZ has been damaged during the attack. In order to understand if the
game/system is damaged or completely lost, Allegra needs to play the game
with somebody friendly. However Ted doesn’t have a bioport, which is a
whole in the spine that enables the gamers to plug into the game-pod and
enter virtual reality. Allegra talks him into getting one and they go to a local
country gas station to get an illegal bioport installment. They play a game at
the gas station immediately after the installation. However, they find out
that the operator of the station, Gas, has installed a flawed port into Ted,
which damages Allegra’s game/system along with the pod. It turns out that
Gas has done this on purpose, to get the bonus for killing Allegra and
destroying her game/system. Gas attacks Allegra and gets killed by Ted.
After that, Ted and Allegra take refuge in a ski hut which in fact is the
103
laboratory of Kiri Vinokur, a game pod engineer. Kiri Vinokur installs a
new port into Ted and also operates the damaged pod. Allegra and Ted play
a game at the ski hut:
In this game Ted and Allegra are in a game shop called Darcy
Nader’s Game Emporium. Darcy Nader tells them to port into some micro-
pods to download their new identites. They port and begin a new game
inside the game.
Inside this game within a game, Ted and Allegra are members of the
Realist Underground disguised as workers in a game-pod factory. They
meet Yevgeny Nourish who they think is their contact at the factory.
Following his instructions, Ted kills a waiter in the Chinese restaurant. After
the incident they get out of this game and get back to the game at Darcy
Nader’s Game Emporium.
At the game shop, Hugo Carlaw tells them that they have killed their
actual contact at the factory, The Chinese waiter. They learn that Yevgeny
Nourish was in fact a double-agent.Then they go back into the micro-pod
game.
Back in the farm, Allegra decides to port into a diseased pod and
spread the illness to all the other pods to destroy them. After the porting she
turns bad. Ted tries to unport her but he can’t. Desperately he cuts her free
but she starts to bleed.
They instantly get out of the game and find themselves in the ski hut.
One of the game characters, Hugo Carlaw enters the room with a rifle in his
hand, and orders them to get out. They are confused and they cannot
104
understand how come a game character appears in reality. They cannot be
sure if they are still inside a game. Outside the hut, Kiri Vinokur comes and
tells Allegra that he has been working for the rival game company for some
time and admits that he has copied eXistenZ during the operation. Allegra
kills Kiri Vinokur. It turns out that Ted was a realist who has dedicated
himself to kill Allegra but she attacks first and kills Ted.
The scenery slowly turns into the sight of the church and we understand
that all that we have seen was already a game. In reality Yevgeny
Nourish is a star game designer whereas Ted and Allegra are a couple
among the test group. However it turns out that they are in fact Realists
determined to kill Yevgeny Nourish. They kill Yevgeny Nourish and as
they are about to leave, one of the gamers asks: “Hey, tell me the truth,
are we still in the game?”
105
APPEDIX III
A TABLE OF REALITY LEVELS I eXistenZ
There are several reality levels in eXistenZ as the characters are
constantly getting in and out of games within games. Their characters and
attributes also differ according to the level of reality. The table below
displays the specific events, characters and their attributes in different
levels, in order to prevent any possible confusion. The numbers by the
names of the characters throughout this work indicate the reality level that
characters belong to.
Reality
Level Scene/Site Game Characters
1 • The last church • Outside all games • Ted and Allegra are a
scene Realist couple in a
product testing group.
• Yevgeny Nourish is a
star game designer
2 • The first church • A game played by • Allegra is a star game
scene. characters in level 1. designer and Ted is a
• The car marketing trainee.
• The gas station
• The ski hut
3 • Darcy Nader’s • The game Ted and • Ted and Allegra are
Game Emporium Allegra play at the ski members of the
hut. Realist Underground
but they are not
aware of this.
4 • The trout farm • The micro-pod game • Ted and Allegra are
• The Chinese played at Darcy members of the
restaurant Nader’s Game Realist Underground
Emporium disguised as workers
in the Trout Farm
• Yevgeny Nourish is a
double-agent.

Through The Liquid Glass - Sona Ertekin (2003)

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Through The Liquid Glass - Sona Ertekin (2003)

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

2

ISTABUL BILGI UIVERSITY

Film and TV Department

A Comparative Approach to The Matrix and eXistenZ

Istanbul July 2003

2. Through The Liquid Glass

2.1 The Veal-fattenning Pen ...............................................14

2.2 Pause and Stretch .........................................................20

2.3 The Lotus Eaters or Temet Nosce ................................23

2.4 No Telos .......................................................................32

2.5 Safety Valves ................................................................42

2.6 Fleshware v.s. Super-human-machine-boy ...................55

2.7 The New Flesh ..............................................................67

2.8 The Cage .......................................................................74

2.9 The Other Side of the Glass ..........................................81

5. Works Cited ...........................................................................94

6.1 Appendix A - Plot Summary of The Matrix

6.2. Appendix B - Plot Summary of eXistenZ

6.3 Appendix C - A Table of Reality Levels in eXistenZ

For my little sister,

Yağmur Elif Ertekin

I am deeply thankful to my thesis supervisor Assistant Professor

am thankful to all my professors at Hacettepe and Bilgi Universities. They

have been a source of knowledge and vision throughout my education and

staff for helping me out in the tiresome stages of my work.

I am thankful to my friends Duygun Erim and Fırat Kaya for sharing

I am also thankful to Zillimücadele, all my friends and dearest

make the world a better place.

always there when I needed, all the way long.

“Nothing so difficult as a beginning”

Mustafa Arslantunalı writes that science-fiction works are a

“Wonderland”, and the science fiction audience is like “Alice”, bedazzled

boundaries of our perception of our world and society. Arslantunalı adds

have a proper understanding of social transformations as well as

technological change. i In William Gibson’s words, the idea is that “science

games and tea parties.

At the beginning of her first adventure, Alice is sitting in the garden,

When she comes back from Wonderland, having experienced a

is a kind of parallel universe. Alice makes a conscious decision this time

multiple realities. However this is a two-way relationship. The depiction of

Let's pretend there's a way of getting through into it, somehow,

simultaneously as she thinks of them. The knowledge of hyperreality Alice

has attained in Wonderland enables her to create/discover the multi-reality

in her own life.

Like Alice creating the looking-glass house after the experience of

years, now we are on the brink of a virtual-bio-tech era where cyberspace

man has created/discovered hyperreality. Of course hyperreality is not only

a matter of science and technology, but it is also reflected in cultural

phenomena, and social theorists are investigating the nature of hyperreal

universe and the motives behind that.

phenomena from sharply opposing points of view. If we think of simulation

house,” from the “family house”; judging it in terms of authenticity. And

eXistenZ looks at the “family house” from the “looking-glass house”,

judging its limited form of existence. In contradicting understandings, both

In his manifesto, Society of the Spectacle written in the year 1967,

on images; “In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all

of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything

Reality itself founders in hyperrealism, the

signified breaks down. The reality of production or signification leaves its

place to the “hyperreal”, consisting of resemblances.vii Hyperreality is what

2003 the videotape of the rescue operation of a 19-year-old soldier called

Jessica Lynch from the Naserriya general hospital was released by

ISTABUL BILGI UIVERSITY

otes to the Introduction

THE VEAL-FATTEIG PE